‘Can you make it to the road? My flat’s not that far away. I’ll get my car and I’ll drive you.’
‘I’ll wait for you at the bus stop. I can get that far.’
At home in her tiny flat, Grace looked at Freeman’s gun more closely. It was a Smith amp; Wesson.38, the kind that used to be standard police issue. It was in good condition and fully loaded. Grace had her own gun, one that lived in a bottom locked drawer. She had acquired it illegally several years ago when an old and dangerous lover had started stalking her. The lover had disappeared when Harrigan had arrived on the scene and these days he was in gaol. The work she did now allowed her to carry firearms legally. Still, she held on to the gun. Nothing was reliable. Harrigan might walk out on her; she might walk out on him. The stalker could get his freedom. She might no longer have a job. Freeman’s gun was more powerful. The compact disk was in the sports bag as well, in an unmarked case just as he’d said. Am I really going to do something as crazy as this, she thought. Again she rang Harrigan and again his phone was switched off. She took the photograph Freeman had given her on the beach and, together with the CD and the gun, put all three into her own shoulder bag. Then she left her flat. She was going to do something as crazy as this.
Freeman was a strange figure waiting for her in the hot summer wind among the tanned and slender bodies of the young backpackers with their fashion haircuts and wash-away designer tattoos. He sat heavily in the passenger seat, breathing strangely.
‘Are we going to make it?’ she asked.
‘I dunno. Lucky it’s not far.’
‘Where to?’
‘Round the back of Waverley Cemetery. I’ll tell you where to go.’
She drove for a short while in silence. His breathing seemed to settle and become more regular. She glanced at him.
‘I’ve got a question to ask you since I’m doing you a favour,’ she said.
‘Yeah?’
‘Did you kill Gina Farrugia and her boyfriend?’
‘You’re like Paulie, aren’t you? You don’t let things go. Yeah, I did kill them. They owed me money. Tell you what, though-that little girl. It was a fucking awful thing to have to do. I got the money, I got the money. She just kept on. I-’
‘You can stop right there.’ Grace changed gears viciously. ‘I’m not interested in hearing that. Tell me something else. Gina was raped. Did you do that too?’
‘No, that wasn’t me. I couldn’t by then. I was too sick.’
‘Who did?’
‘What do you want to know for?’
‘I want to send whoever did it a Christmas card. What do you think?’
Freeman laughed. It was a hangman’s cackle, one of the strangest sounds Grace had ever heard.
‘I can see what Paulie sees in you past your looks. Fuck ’em, they ripped me off. It’ll be something for them to remember me by. A couple of mongrels. Dougie Ferry and Rob Sinclair. Dougie’s in gaol already. You don’t have to go after him.’
Oh but I will, Grace thought. You can bet I will. If you weren’t dying, I’d go after you too.
The houses in Freeman’s street were built up on the rock close to Waverley Cemetery where the graves had a view out to the Pacific Ocean. A smattering of cars were parked on the road.
‘I’m the house on the corner of that lane,’ Freeman said. ‘Go up the side, Gracie. I can’t climb the steps any more.’
Halfway along the street a narrow lane dissected the roadway. Freeman’s house was elevated at the front and side, with the bulge of the original sandstone edging the street. A steep set of steps cut into the rock led to up to his porch. It was the only house in the block still in its original condition. All the others had been renovated to luxury, becoming images of tunnel vision with blank walls on either side and glass fronts set rigidly towards the view. Grace drove to the end of the lane, did a turn in the next cross street and then came back down to park beside Freeman’s side gate. On the way up the lane, she had seen bars on all his windows.
He got out of the car wheezing. ‘Fucking useless,’ he said.
She followed him in the gate to the backyard, a small square of couch grass sporting a rusty rotary clothes hoist. The space was surrounded by high fences and the brick wall of the house next door. As soon as the gate closed behind him, she took out the gun he’d given her. He turned and laughed.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘You won’t need that.’
She noticed that the back door had a new lock. Freeman deadlocked it behind them as soon they’d stepped inside.
‘Why are you doing that?’ she asked.
‘I’ve told you, Gracie. It’s nothing for you to be frightened of. You’ll see why when we walk through.’
In the kitchen, the smell of blocked plumbing hit her like a wall. The cupboards had been left open, their contents pulled out; the fridge, already empty, had been dragged away from the wall. Even the stove and the ancient, greasy ceiling fan had been pulled out. She followed him down the hallway that ran the length of the house. Every room had been torn apart. The carpets were pulled up, cupboards and sets of drawers had been emptied. The manhole cover had been removed, junk pulled from the roof cavity and tossed onto the floor. In one room, a bedroom, a mattress had been straightened and a bed made up. It was one of the few signs of habitation. They reached the living room at the front of the house where the sunlight was a bright gilding on the dusty windows. Freeman sat heavily in a chair. The air was musty, the room also disordered.
‘Open the front door, would you, Gracie? I need some air. I don’t mind that door being open because I can see people coming.’
He tossed her his keys. She opened the door but left it on the deadlock in case she had to shut it in a hurry. Hot air rushed in from the outside. Freeman had his eyes closed.
‘Who turned your place over like this?’ she asked. ‘What did they want?’
‘At a guess, Gracie, it’s what I’ve got to give you. Those tapes. There’s nothing else here anyone would want. They got in through the back door. Happened while I was in hospital. I ask myself, what if I’d been here at the time? Would I already be outside in the cemetery with my mum and dad?’
‘Where are these tapes?’
‘In a moment. I’ve got to tell you something else. Whoever did it, they did find something. That CD I gave you on the beach. I used to have prints of all those pictures. There’s a few where everyone’s having a real good time and I wanted them to look at, you know, to have a laugh. They were in the top drawer of that sideboard over there when I got carted off to hospital. They’re gone now. As far as I can tell, they’re the only thing that is gone. So whoever broke in here, they wanted my tapes and my pictures.’
‘How could anyone know you had all this information here?’
‘That’s it, you see. Mike. Apart from me, he’s the only fucking person who knew any of it even existed! It’s the same thing with his safety deposit box. He’s the only one who knew how to open it.’ Almost to her shock, Freeman looked distressed, even horrified. ‘You saw that fucking picture of Mike on the net this morning. He’d been put through the wringer. They must have done that to him to make him tell them all that. Whoever broke in here, he’s the one who did that to Mike and then killed him. He must be. He’s the one I want you to get.’
‘Why would they want to do that to begin with?’
‘You listen to the tape. It’ll tell you why. It’s about people with a lot to protect.’
There was silence. Grace thought how she was isolated in the silent suburban wilderness where anything could happen and no one cared.
‘You’ve set me up. You could have given me the tape on Bondi beach.’
‘No, mate. I want you to walk away from here and go back to your boyfriend in one piece. It was too fucking dangerous to carry them around. I’ve got to tell you something else. You see that door over there in the hallway. That’s where that little girl and her boyfriend died. I wish I hadn’t done that. It bothers me.’