‘Just a few more questions. Let’s go back to when you were standing on the front step.’
Harrigan turned away. ‘I want to see Grace’s car,’ he said to Trevor.
Outside in the hot sun, Harrigan looked at the Datsun parked in the laneway.
‘This hasn’t been moved, has it? Our gunman would have seen it when he came up here. He’d have to guess this was Grace’s car. There’s no other reason why it’d be parked here.’
‘That’s so.’
‘Have you checked it?’
‘We haven’t had the time yet.’
Harrigan walked around the car, turning to look down to where the lane met the road. What would you have time to do? Where would you stop? He looked at the polished bodywork. Gloved hands don’t leave a mark. He took out a handkerchief and felt under the back wheel arch. Something hard and rectangular was attached at the top of the arc. It came away with a sharp tug.
‘What do you think this is?’ he said, showing it to Trevor.
‘At a guess, a tracking device. Maybe we can put it on another car and sting him.’
Grace had appeared at the back gate. She came up to them.
‘This was under your car’s wheel arch,’ Harrigan said. ‘We think it’s a tracking device. Trevor’s suggested we put it on another car and sting the man who tried to kill you.’
‘Can I see it?’ she asked
He handed it to her, still wrapped in his handkerchief. At times like this he wondered what her work really involved. Probably she knew about this kind of technology, who had it and what they did with it.
‘It depends on how sophisticated the device is,’ she said, giving it back. ‘These days, some of them are made to send out a warning if they’re disturbed. That means he’ll already know you’ve found it. That device is very new. You might want to test it out first or you’ll just be telling him where you are.’
‘Whoever shot at you,’ Harrigan said, ‘wasn’t going to wait to check your rego before he came after you again. He was coming after you as soon as you drove away from here. Why would he want to do that?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe he thinks I can ID him by his voice.’
‘Gracie,’ Trevor said, ‘are you sure Freeman didn’t give you something this person would want?’
‘No, but the gunman might have thought that he did.’
‘You’re saying he may know we’ve found this device. Is he still going to come after you? Do you need protection? Tell me and we’ll organise it now,’ Harrigan said.
‘That’s my choice, isn’t it? No, I don’t need it. I don’t see why he’d come after me now.’
‘If you don’t want protection, do you want to be armed?’ Trevor asked. ‘We can organise that, no worries.’
‘I can organise it myself. I’ve got a licence to carry a personal firearm.’
‘Mate,’ Trevor said, ‘it’s possible this person is our Pittwater killer. Maybe he started with Cassatt and those three other people and now he’s ended up here with Freeman. If you know anything that ties this killer to anyone who got shot up at Pittwater, I need to know about it. Believe me, I don’t want to come and clean you up the way I’m cleaning up Freeman right now.’
‘That’s not going to happen.’
Both Harrigan and Trevor looked at her in silence.
‘We’re going to have to impound your car,’ Harrigan said.
‘What?’
‘We have to, Grace. I’m taking it in.’
‘No, you’re not. You’ve found that device. Why do you need my car?’
‘It has to be checked by Forensics.’
‘Paul, you are not taking my car.’
‘Grace, we’re not having a private conversation.’
She looked around to see everyone, including Trevor, staring open-mouthed at the boss’s orders being countermanded.
‘All right, take it,’ she said, and walked away to the other side of the lane where she lit a cigarette.
‘Right,’ Trevor said, looking the other way. ‘I’ll get this thing bagged.’
He walked off with the tracking device. Once he’d gone, Harrigan crossed the road to speak to Grace.
‘What are you holding back?’ he asked very softly. ‘What have you got that someone wants to track you down like this to get it?’
‘I can’t tell you that here. I need to get home. Have they finished with me?’
‘Do you want me to check?’
‘No, I’ll wait for them to come and tell me.’
‘Grace, just tell me. Do you need protection? I’ll get it for you right now.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know-’
‘Trevor’s coming,’ she said.
Trevor joined them and handed Harrigan back his handkerchief.
‘Okay, Gracie,’ he said, ‘do you want to go home now? We don’t need you any more. Just for your info, we’re keeping your name out of the media. You were brave, mate. Really brave. If there’s anything else you remember, anything you want to talk about, just pick up the phone. We can talk privately. It’s no big deal. If you do decide you want protection, if the boss here can’t fix it up, then you ring me day or night.’
‘Thanks, Trev,’ she said, barely able to frame the words.
‘I’ll drive you home,’ Harrigan said. Then to Trevor: ‘You don’t need me any more, do you?’
‘No, boss. We’ve got it in hand. I’ll call you with an update tomorrow.’
‘Do that.’
In the car, Harrigan saw tears rolling silently down Grace’s cheeks.
‘Are you all right?’
‘I’ll be fine. I just need to sit here and cry a little.’
‘I’ll get you home.’
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched her cry for the duration of the short journey. His mind went back to the cellar under Freeman’s house and then to the front steps. Images of her shot dead in either place were vivid in his mind. He snuffed them out ruthlessly. He looked at her staring out of the window. Don’t ever do this to me again, whatever else you do.
Reaching her building, he drove down the ramp into the secure garage in the basement, the security door rolling shut behind them. In the late afternoon no one else was down there, only rows of vacant cars in the cool, concrete cavern. She got out of the car first and stood there wiping her eyes with a tissue.
‘Grace.’ Harrigan had to ask, not even stopping to close the car door. ‘What were you doing going to Freeman’s place? He’s scum. Anything could have been waiting for you there. Half a dozen of his mates! Why didn’t you ring me?’
‘I did. Your phone was off. He gave me his gun on Bondi beach. He said if I didn’t trust him, I could use it to protect myself.’
‘On the beach!’
‘It was in a bag.’
‘Well, that’s all right then. How did you know he wasn’t setting you up? If you get shot with a gun in your hand, it’s self-defence. Then I live with you dead while Freeman gets his revenge.’
‘It wasn’t like that!’ She turned towards him so abruptly he stepped back. ‘I work in this field too. I was there. I made a judgement and it was the right one. You’ve got no business talking to me like this. He gave me these. They’re for you. Take them.’
One after the other, she took the tape, the CD and the photograph out of her shoulder bag and handed them to him. He took them, pushing the tape into his pocket, tossing the CD onto the driver’s seat through the open door. Then he looked at the photograph.
‘Shit,’ he said softly.
‘According to Freeman there’s more where that came from, on the CD,’ she said. ‘That tape is from a series of syndicate meetings with him, Cassatt, Morrissey, Baby Tooth and Beck. They met regularly.’
‘Beck?’
‘That’s right. The tape connects Beck to Life Patent Strategies. Freeman believed that whoever worked Cassatt over did so to find out how much he knew about that connection. Beck took Cassatt down to their laboratory at Campbelltown earlier this year. After that, all hell broke loose.’
‘The gunman thinks you have this tape,’ Harrigan said.