Grace, barely breathing, had her hand over her nose and mouth. He would be able to smell that a gun had been fired in here, even if he hadn’t heard it. If he walked into the dark down those dangerous steps, he would know that she had a better chance of getting him before he got her.
‘Let me tell you something, man,’ the gunman said. ‘That little trick of yours didn’t fool me for one second. I saw that bag of tapes on the chair. But I can count. I know there should be five tapes and one CD. You give me the tape you’re holding and you can walk away. You don’t know me, I don’t know you. Easy. That’s all I want, that tape. I’m taking the rest with me anyway. Just give me the one to make up the whole.’
He stopped. They both waited.
‘You’re not fooling me. I know you’re down there. You don’t want me coming after you, Auntie. You give me that tape and you’re safe.’ There was another pause. ‘Let me tell you something, man. It doesn’t mean anything that you’ve got that CD. I’ve already got all the pictures on it. If they hit the media, they’ll take people down. Maybe it’s someone you know. Someone you care about. You can stop that happening.’
Again, silence.
‘Look, man, if it’s money you want, we can talk about that. You give me that tape. There could be more money in this for you than you can dream about. You think about that.’
She could hear growing agitation in his voice. Then all at once he was gone, shutting the door behind him. The tension snapped, she leaned back against the rock, breathing deeply. After some moments, she took out her mobile phone. The illuminated screen said no signal. Pressed into the rubble, she was in too much of a cave. If she moved into the centre of the cellar it might be possible to make a call. She waited for more long, terrible minutes, wondering if he would come back.
Suddenly, the door was pushed open again and brilliant torchlight flashed down the stairs, its beam raking across the cold room. Grace froze where she was. Then a broad Australian voice called out, ‘Police. Is anyone down there? Walk into the light. Keep your hands where we can see them. Come out now.’
In the dark, Grace leaned back against the icy rock, breathing the filthy air too deeply. She wouldn’t die in here after all.
‘I’m down here,’ she called. ‘I’m holding a gun but I’m not going to fire it. Also, I’m on the job. Okay? I’m one of you.’
‘Then come out where we can see you. Keep your gun in sight at all times,’ the voice came back.
‘I’m coming out now,’ Grace called, and moved towards the light illuminating the stairs, light-headed to be alive.
11
When Harrigan reached Cotswold House, he found Toby sitting in the sun poolside in his wheelchair, having lunch with his therapist, Tim Masson. Performing an old ritual, Harrigan and Tim took turns in helping Toby eat. In front of them, the convergence of the Lane Cove and Parramatta Rivers created a wide expanse of water flowing around the industrial rocks of Cockatoo and Spectacle Islands. On the further shore, townhouses encroached on the green waterline. At the end of the meal, Tim left father and son together, wheeling the mobile table back to the kitchen.
‘How are you?’ Harrigan asked. ‘I’m sorry I had to leave like that yesterday. Believe me, I wish I’d been here instead.’
Toby could speak, and sometimes did, but usually found it too hard to get out an individual word. With his good hand, he typed a text message onto a miniature display device he kept with him, in this case attached to his wheelchair. Harrigan thought of his son’s words living and dying in the soft darkness of his thoughts, caught there like moths trying to find their way out to the light. The glossy and sophisticated brochure from Life Patent Strategies with its promises of bodily regeneration flashed into his mind. Could they untie his son’s disabilities, at least help him speak? The hope was too sharp to think about. He watched Toby’s deft movements across the keyboard. His silent speech was quick, a mix of electronic words and his own private sign language, rejigged from the signing of the deaf.
Grace was madder at you than I was. I’m good but how are you? They’re all over the net those pictures that got emailed out this morning. Real sicko stuff. Are you okay?
‘I’m fine, mate. I’m keeping it at arm’s length.’
You look like you’ve been run over by something.
Harrigan smiled. For the first time that day, he let his backbone relax.
‘I feel like it,’ he said, a rare admission. ‘Everyone wants too much from me today. It’s like being drained dry.’
Why do you have to keep doing it?
‘I’ve been on the job for seventeen years. I don’t know what else I could do.’
You could do something else if you wanted to.
‘I could change my life, you mean? I think about it sometimes. I wonder what it’d be like if I did. But I don’t know how to do it.’
You still don’t have to be a policeman forever.
‘Don’t talk about me, let’s talk about you. Why are you all dressed up? Are you expecting someone?’
Toby was wearing a shirt he’d received as a birthday present, a soft blue cotton, light and cool. His crooked legs were bare in the sun. The summer heat relaxed his body, loosening its muscular tightness.
Emma’s coming to see me. Hypatia are having a BBQ for me at her place. It’s going to be a hookup all around the country. We’re going to talk about it today. Hypatia was an all-girl online mathematicians club that had found Toby through his website and taken him under their collective wing as an honorary member. His son, who had scored perfect marks in mathematics throughout his final school year, exchanged complex equations with them across the net. Harrigan had met them smiling at the other end of the webcam. Five brilliant girls, both attractive and ordinary, who lived across the continent from as far away as Perth. Emma was the Sydney-sider. Toby’s shirt, expensive and carefully chosen, was her gift, bought on behalf of all five girls. For Toby, her card had read. Love from us all. Harrigan hesitated. His son had had his heart broken before.
‘Don’t let her hurt you,’ he said.
I’m not stupid. I know she’s never going to want to have sex with me. I don’t care. She talks to me. I just want to be with her. Emma’s going to enrol in the same course as me next year. We’re going to be at uni together.
‘That’s great. You’ll have someone to study with.’
If that’s what she wants to do. It’s okay. She might find someone else she wants to talk to when she gets there.
Toby began to drool, something he did from time to time. Harrigan took out his handkerchief and wiped his son’s mouth, the spittle soaking into the fabric. Could a seventeen-year-old girl deal with this? Out on the water, boats and ferries plied their way. Close by, the water in the swimming pool was an inviting turquoise. Toby liked to swim in the pool, kicking out with his one good leg. These were the constraints of his son’s world; perhaps they hurt him more than they hurt Toby. Harrigan thought of his son’s website where Toby had drawn a precise representation of his crippled body for other people to look at. He had written: This is how my body is twisted. Harrigan had made that twisted body; it should have matched his own. It would have done if there hadn’t been a glitch somewhere in Toby’s otherwise clear brain, some short circuit that had cramped his muscles permanently.
‘Toby,’ he said, ‘if you just ask, there are women I can get for you. I can organise whatever you want. I can set things up for you at home. You can have all the privacy you want. You just have to let me know.’
Not someone who cares about me. Just something paid for. I don’t want that. I don’t want to talk about it now.