Down in the foyer, Grace was looking for ways to hide inside the building when she saw a car pulling up outside. The driver didn’t get out. Grace guessed it to be Brinsmead’s hire car and stepped into the fire escape. Holding it open by a crack, she waited. She could see the foyer clearly, although not the front doors or the street. After almost ten minutes, Daniel appeared, stepping out of the lift. He was still dressed in white, wearing soft loafers on his feet, and walked awkwardly. She heard him leave the building, waited some minutes longer, then stepped out of the fire escape. Both he and the car were gone.
Again, she took the lift to the top floor. Bracing herself, she rang the doorbell to the penthouse. There was no response. The key turned easily in the lock and she let herself in.
The rodent smell was even stronger than it had been earlier. All the lights had been turned off except the standard lamp in the lounge room. The mobile phone was missing from the coffee table. Grace went into the kitchen and, in the half-dark, saw that Daniel’s keys were also gone. There would be enough time. It was an hour to Campbelltown and an hour back. She moved to search the rest of the penthouse.
In the hallway, one of the doors had been left open. She switched on the light and went inside. It was the master bedroom, large with a king-sized bed and a walk-in wardrobe whose doors were floor-to-ceiling glass. The bed had been slept in but not made. There was an en suite, scrupulously clean, and more pain medications on the bedside table. Daniel Brinsmead slept here with his temporary anaesthetics and his memories of the dead.
In the top drawer of the bedside table she found a small photograph album. Opening it, she saw pictures of Daniel before he had been burnt. Fit, good-looking and well dressed, he shared most of these photographs with Elena Calvo. They hadn’t just gone out for a little while. They must have been lovers, deeply attached, at least on her side. There was adoration in the looks she gave Brinsmead in these pictures. His response was harder to read. Even so, the happiness in their faces was unforced. Fashion, attraction, wealth, it was all there for them. Then the photographs stopped. She checked the backs of some of the pictures but there were no dates or places given.
Turning a page, Grace found herself looking at very different picture, a black and white photograph from a time that seemed to be immediately post-World War Two. A pale-haired young man and a woman the same age were standing against the background of a ruined European city. The man was holding a baby. No one in this picture was smiling. Their faces were hollowed out, exhausted and hungry; their clothing dark and ragged. Grace slipped the picture out of its sleeve. It was a new photograph of an old image and showed the original’s creases and tears. Stamped on the back in blue ink were two words: Kinshasa Photographique. She put the photograph back and returned the album to the bedside table. Then she left the room, switching off the light behind her.
She checked the other rooms but they were unused. At the end of the hallway, she went to the fourth door and opened it. Immediately, the animal smell filled the air. She had found the main bathroom, a large room with a spa bath. The blinds were drawn here as elsewhere, but the overhead lights, artificially bright, had been left on, illuminating the white tiles. The bathroom didn’t seem to have been used for some time; it was completely dry and the spiders had woven their webs in the corners of the room.
Someone had built a makeshift set of shelves against one wall. They held a dozen cages. She heard a soft rustling. Small animals were in some of these cages; she saw the occasional dull glint of a tiny eye. She walked closer to them. In about three of the cages, white mice sniffed at the air through a strong, closely woven steel mesh or were huddled together in corners, motionless. In all the rest they lay dead beside their feeding and watering trays, all of which were filled with pieces of grain. Each of the cages was locked. Next to the shelves, there was a large steel cabinet. She tried to open it but it was also locked.
It was time to leave; she had seen all she could. She shut the bathroom door behind her and was about to walk into the lounge room when she heard the front door being opened. Quickly she went into the master bedroom and stepped inside the walk-in wardrobe.
‘Danny?’ a woman called in a clear voice. ‘Are you here? Have I missed you?’
It was Sam Jonas. Grace took out her gun. In the silence, she heard quick footsteps that stopped at the bedroom doorway for a few seconds before continuing along the hallway. There was the sound of another door opening.
‘How are you poor little critters today?’ she heard Sam say. ‘It’s the end of the road, boys. I’m taking you to our safe house, all of you, dead or alive. It’s time for you to fulfil your destiny. Lucky you.’
Sam could only be in the bathroom. While Grace listened, she made a number of trips up and down the hallway and in and out of the penthouse, evidently moving the cages out. Finally, there was the sound of the metal cabinet being opened; then another sound; the front door opening again. Grace heard Brinsmead’s voice.
‘Sam? Careful with them. Don’t disturb them any more than you have to.’
‘I am being careful. Anyway, I’m almost finished. What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be on your way to the bunker?’
‘I realised I’d forgotten my dog tag. It’s the painkillers, they’re addling my mind.’
‘You’ve got to hang in there for a while yet. We’re not finished by a long chalk. Where did you leave your tag?’
‘In the bedroom.’
The light was switched on and Grace heard the footsteps of two people entering the room.
‘Is it in the wardrobe? Maybe you left it pinned to one of your jackets.’
‘No, the last time I took it off, I put it on the chest of drawers. But it’s not there now.’
There was a creaking sound, as if he’d sat on the bed.
‘Are you okay, Danny? Are you in pain? Do you want a shot?’
‘I’ve had one already. Riordan gave it to me.’
‘You let her touch you.’
‘She offered and I didn’t say no. She was being kind to me, I was in some bad pain. She had a gentle touch and lovely hands. Don’t worry. It’s just a fantasy on my part.’
‘Enjoy it while it lasts,’ Sam said. ‘Did you tell her the story?’
‘In full gruesome detail. It almost got too much for me. She was a good listener.’
‘As long as it eases your mind, I don’t care. Did she notice the smell in here?’
‘If she did, she was too polite to say so. I want her to understand. Almost as soon as I started talking to her at the launch, I wanted her to know. Then today when I was talking to her, I kept thinking she made me feel almost human. The world had some colour in it for once. If I was the man I used to be, I would have asked her to have dinner with me.’
Sam laughed. ‘You’re in love. You can’t let it distract you.’
‘It’s a passing dream. It’s not going to turn into anything else. Look at me. How can it? It’s something a little different for me to say good night on. It means I can pass out of consciousness in a better place in my head.’
‘One thing we know for sure now,’ Sam said. ‘Harrigan isn’t Elena’s little running dog. DP wouldn’t have snatched his son if he was onside. He must have said no the other day. She wouldn’t have liked that.’
‘She must be getting frustrated,’ Brinsmead said. ‘This isn’t proving as straightforward as she thought it would be. What do you think she wants from Harrigan? You say she already has a stooge in the police. So why put pressure on Harrigan?’
‘She does have a stooge. Marvin Tooth. He and DP were having a very intense conversation that morning in that car park. Harrigan must have something she wants. Freeman gave Riordan something the other day-he must have done. Something to do with Jerome’s grubby mates. Why else would his place have been turned over like that? She’s passed it on to Harrigan. Whatever it is, it’s enough to spook Elena and get her running around like a blue-arsed fly. She takes her eye off the ball, it makes it easier for us.’