The Tattooed Man (12 page)

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.

‘No, he knows I do. It’s one of five. The other four were in a bag on the chair. He took them with him.’

‘Grace, you’re in real danger.’

‘Wait,’ she said. ‘There are other things you need to know. Today’s gunman is the same person who turned over Freeman’s house. He didn’t find the tape but he did find copies of the photos on the CD. He told me that today when I was in the cellar. He was trying to cajole me into coming out.’

‘You shouldn’t have been there.’

‘It’s okay. I handled it. According to Freeman, this man must have killed the Ice Cream Man
because Cassatt was the only other person who knew this information existed. Also, Sam Jonas was there today. She must have been watching the house and seen me arrive with Freeman. She walked up to ask me what I was doing there. She knew who I was and that something was going to happen. She drove away and left us there to get shot.’

‘Christ,’ Harrigan said, still staring at the photograph. ‘You’ve got to have protection.’

‘No. I don’t want people breathing down my neck. Look, for all the gunman knows, I’ve given this tape to the police or to you. Which I have. Why would he think I’ve kept it? If he was going to try and get to me, it would be to ask that single question: where is it?’

Harrigan tossed the picture onto the car seat and almost slammed the door. ‘Why did you put yourself in danger like that? Why didn’t you tell Freeman to wait until you could get in touch with me?’

‘He was dying.’

‘He was scum!’

‘I can’t call him scum, not now. He saved my life,’ she said.

‘I’m supposed to feel grateful to the man who almost killed me! Grace, you have to come back to my place. If you won’t have protection, I’ve got to keep you safe.’

‘I can look after myself here.’

‘You don’t have a gun. I’ve got one I can give you,’ he said, his tone heated.

‘I don’t need a gun from you.’

‘Why? Have you got one? I didn’t think you did.’

‘No, I don’t,’ she said angrily, looking away.

Harrigan hated guns; he always had, despite the fact that his work revolved around them and he had carried them often enough. Nothing filled him with
more contempt than the sight of new officers—men or women—whose egos swelled as soon as they put on their firearms for the first time. It disturbed him to think she might have a gun when he didn’t know about it.

‘I’ve got to listen to this tape,’ he said. ‘Come back with me. We’ll be safer together.’

‘Then I’ll be stranded. I don’t have my car. You’ve taken it in. The police garage will keep it from here till eternity.’

‘I had to do that. You know that.’ Suddenly Harrigan was angry as well. ‘You shouldn’t have spoken to me like that in front of my people. It looked bad.’

‘Can’t you handle it? Not everyone jumps when you say jump.’ She turned to him. He couldn’t recall the last time she’d looked so angry. ‘I knew what I was doing today. I’m a professional. I trusted my judgement and I was right to do so. I have the training to deal with that situation and I did deal with it.’

‘No, Grace. I know you. You like to take risks. You take them whenever you’re upset. That’s what you were doing today and you almost got shot! It doesn’t matter how professional you are, one day your judgement’s going to be wrong. It has to be. I’ve got a reconstructed jaw to prove it.’

‘I did what I did because I thought it would help you. You can’t say it won’t. All that information is invaluable and you know it.’

‘I’d never ask you to do anything like that for me.’

‘Then maybe I won’t in future. See you.’

She walked off quickly. Exasperated, he went after her.

‘That wasn’t an insult. I know how valuable this information is. That goes without saying. All I meant is that you don’t have to risk your life for me.’

She was at the door to the stairs, opened it. ‘I need to think. I’ll talk to you later.’

‘All right, whatever you want.’ He’d had enough. ‘My door is open if you want to come and see me tonight. If you don’t, fine, but that’s your decision. I want you there. If you don’t want to be there, that’s up to you. I’ll see you.’

The door to the stairs slammed shut. She was gone. He drove out of the garage into the late afternoon with a sense of finality, of leaving and never coming back. She could come to him if she wanted him this time. There were times when there was nothing else to do but leave it to her. He drove towards the city feeling drained of any emotion.

T
he television blared at the crowded waiting room in Coolemon District Hospital, a news update being broadcast during a break in the one-day cricket match. A smiling blonde-haired woman appeared sitting at the desk.

‘Police have released no further details concerning the second unnamed man found dead in the house of businesswoman Natalie Edwards, despite the release on the internet of photographs of the victims earlier today. John Makaris begins our exclusive coverage at the scene. A warning that some viewers may find the following scenes disturbing.’

It was the first time Harold had seen the photograph. He had no computer and hadn’t turned on his television that day. It shocked him so much he forgot briefly the pain of his burned hands. Jerome, a dead man at the table, stared out at him from the television screen. The name of the other dead man, ex-Detective Senior Sergeant Michael Cassatt, was repeated with endless close-ups of his mummified body.

‘Harold Morrissey.’

The doctor was calling him in his impenetrable accent. Originally from Glasgow, William Campbell
had been despatched to the isolated confines of Coolemon District Hospital for four years by the Department of Immigration as a condition of his permanent residence in Australia. It had been said that when he first arrived, people needed subtitles to understand his dialect. Still, they’d found him to be a good doctor and trusted him.

He swabbed Harold’s hands clean and examined them.

‘How did you do this? Did you touch any kind of acid or corrosive substance today?’

‘I don’t know what caused it, Doc. Something out on the farm I picked up.’

‘Didn’t you notice at the time?’

‘No.’

‘That’s hard to believe. Whatever it was, it’s burned through the skin almost down to the flesh. You’d have very hard hands normally, wouldn’t you?’

‘I’ve been a farmer all my life. They’re not soft.’

‘I don’t know what state your hands would be in now if they were. I’ve not seen anything like this before. It’s beyond the treatment I can give you here. You need to see a burns specialist.’

‘I can’t leave my farm,’ Harold said.

‘You’ll have to,’ the young man replied firmly. ‘I’ll make the arrangements. In the meantime, I’ll prescribe you painkillers and we’ll get those wounds dressed. I’ll give you some sleeping tablets as well. The pain might keep you awake tonight.’

It was a lengthy process. Harold’s hands were photographed and samples taken of the burnt skin. When he was finished, the doctor handed him a letter with the details of his appointment at the burns unit at Concord Hospital within the week. Harold could barely thank him. A trip to Sydney was the last thing he had time for right now.

‘You have to go,’ the doctor reiterated. ‘How did you get here today?’

‘My neighbours. She drove me in their car and he drove my ute for me.’

‘You’re not going to drive home!’

‘I have to, Doc. I can’t live where I do and not drive. You’ve just shot me full of painkillers and I’ve got a whole packet here. I’ve got to use my hands.’

The doctor admitted defeat. ‘If you need more, ring me. Try to be as careful as you can. And keep that appointment.’

Harold left the hospital and drove back to Yaralla. His progress was slow; even with painkillers it was difficult to drive. Eventually Naradhan Creek came into view, marked by a thick line of old red gums and low scrub. He crossed the creek, but instead of going straight ahead through his main gate, he turned left onto the Creek Lane. He was visiting Ambrosine.

It hadn’t been a problem for Harold when Harrigan had rung him late one night to ask if he could give Ambro and her children shelter. He had a cottage on the Creek Lane, about two kilometres along from the Coolemon Bridge, he’d been happy to let them have. They had arrived first thing the next morning, sleepy-eyed and exhausted, Harrigan delivering them to Yaralla in person. It was lonely out here for a woman with three children. The cottage had no landline phone, and while there was a mobile phone signal it was unreliable. Supposedly it was only temporary until Harrigan could sort out something else. That was months ago now.

Harold had checked the electricity and the water, then poisoned the white ants, making the cottage as liveable as he could. Through winter, he supplied
Ambrosine with firewood. Her children spent days glueing bright papier-mâché figures onto the doors and window frames, covering the filigreed tunnels the ants had eaten out of the wood. The shapes were small pieces of radiance in the drab house.

He drove into Ambrosine’s yard. In the early evening light, the moon was visible as a huge orange globe low to the horizon behind the house. At the door, a voice yelled at him to come inside.

Ambrosine was in her frowsy kitchen stacking dirty dishes next to the sink. He heard the blare of the television set from the room her three children shared.

‘I was wondering when you were going to get here,’ she said, reaching for a burning cigarette perched on an ashtray. ‘Want a drink first? I’ll finish up here and then we’ll get started.’

She poured a generous measure of whisky and handed him the glass. ‘Jesus, mate,’ she said. ‘What happened to your fucking hands?’

The doctor had covered his hands with clear, plastic-like dressings which he’d said would give greater protection. The burns were clearly visible.

‘Something on the farm today. I wasn’t being careful enough. It makes it hard to touch the steering wheel.’

‘I fucking bet it does. That’s nasty. Are you okay for this with those hands?’

‘Yeah, the doc gave me enough painkillers for an elephant.’

She grinned. ‘You won’t feel a thing then.’

He sat at her table drinking while she finished her cursory cleanup. Her paintings covered the walls in the sour-smelling room, scraps of paper as short-lived as her tattoos were permanent. They closed in on you, each one crowded with obsessive details. He looked at
them: vistas of her kitchen with its unhinged cupboards, scraps of old food covering the table, piles of unwashed dishes scoured by mice, cockroaches and ants; her three children perched on disintegrating chairs on the front veranda, staring at the watcher; a disarray of broken toys, bones and debris covering the bare ground in front of a tiny house that was isolated under a huge blue sky. Harold had once asked her why she painted things this way. ‘It’s my life,’ she’d said. ‘What else is there? I want us to know where we are when we eat. Nowhere.’

‘Did you hear the news?’ he asked, finishing his whisky.

‘About the killings up at Pittwater? Yeah, it was on TV.’ She frowned. ‘It doesn’t make any fucking difference to us whether Mike’s dead or not. We’re still stuck here. If we got in my van and drove away somewhere else, I’d open the front door one day and there’d be someone standing there with a shotgun. But what if we do stay here? How safe are we then? I know this place is your home, but every day I think we’re going to die. I wake up at night and I feel like I’m at the end of the world.’

‘Don’t think like that. You won’t be able to get up in the morning.’

‘There’s no chance of that. The kids get me up, no matter what. They like it here better than I do. Come on, mate. You’re late enough as it is. It’s time we got going.’

‘There’s something I want to ask you first.’

She sat down at the table with him. ‘What?’

‘Do you know anything about this Natalie Edwards?’

‘Why do you want to know about her?’ ‘She was up at my property about a week ago. Her, old Stewie and the other bloke who got shot
with her. Jerome. He’s the one they haven’t named yet. I saw him on the TV at the hospital.’

‘Shit, mate. I’m glad they didn’t know I was here. You want to know about Nattie Edwards? She was a bitch. A fucking ruthless bitch who didn’t care who she walked over for a dollar. What were they doing here?’

‘I don’t want to tell you. It’s too dangerous. It’s to do with this.’ He opened his hands for her to look at once again.

‘Jesus, mate. Ring Harrigan. He’s running that show. I saw him on the TV. Fucking talk to him.’

‘You think I should?’

‘Yeah, I do.’

‘I’ve lived here all my life,’ he said. ‘I’m frightened. I’ve never been frightened before.’

‘Harry, ring him. Go home and call him now. You can come back tomorrow.’

‘No, we’ll do a bit first. Just half an hour. I need the time to work out what I want to say. It’ll settle me down. Then I’ll go home and call.’

‘If that’s what we’re going to do, get in the front room and strip for me.’

Ambrosine called the lounge room her studio even though Harold was her only canvas. He stripped in front of a dark mirror, becoming both naked and dressed. His thin, strong body was webbed with her gorgeous tattoos—an image of his property as it used to be when there was rain. His torso was a waistcoat of brightly coloured birds, and the trunks of eucalyptus trees curled around the hard muscles of his legs. The topography of his ten thousand acres was compressed into an imprint etched onto the stretch of his back. Ambrosine had left her signature—AMBRO—drawn in a spider’s trace of blue ink beneath his ribcage.

She appeared beside him in the mirror. Her body was large in her loose black dress, her long dark hair spilled over an array of stars tattooed on her neck. She ran a finger around an image on his shoulders and he shivered. She had done all these tattoos for nothing because she needed to. She had to work, she said, otherwise she wouldn’t survive.

‘I don’t ever want you to die. That way, there’ll always be these tattoos. It’ll be something I’ll have done with my life. Apart from my kids.’

‘I don’t know how possible that is,’ he said, half-smiling.

He lay down on her table, willing his body to relax.

‘I’ll do a bit more work on the owl,’ she said, speaking of a tattoo she was working on across his torso.

‘Yeah.’

She rolled up her sleeves and began to mark his skin to guide her needle. He could see the psoriatic lesions covering her forearms. Where she hadn’t covered them with tattoos, the lesions marked much of her body. She called them her personal tattoo, one worked from the inside through the genes that made up her skin.

Tonight, his own tattoo would be missing one of its strange and necessary accompaniments, one that was as fundamental to the ritual as the permanent markings left behind. The thin rivers of pain that followed her needle would be dulled by the doctor’s painkillers. There were times Ambrosine worked on him when the world disappeared and there was only him, his tattooist and his pain. It was worth it to him. He was this property, every bit of red dirt that made it. Nothing would shift him from here,
including death, even if they were the deaths of others and not his own.

He lay there while Ambrosine worked, in his mind forming the words he would use to persuade Harrigan to come all the way out here. They came down to a simple sentence. I need your help.