Grace stood beside him outside the interview room, her long hair in a single plait over one shoulder, waiting while he checked his watch once more. Harrigan had not expected to waste quite this much time hanging around.
‘I just love cooling my heels like this,’ he said to her with a grin.
‘Nice to know I’ve got nothing better to do with my time. What is this woman doing? Writing the boy’s obituary?’
She smiled ironically in reply. ‘Here we go. At last,’ she said.
The case worker finally appeared in the corridor, a big woman in a shapeless black dress wearing round glasses and with bright earrings in the shape of parrots. Harrigan turned to greet her with a smile and an outstretched hand.
‘Ria Allard? I’m pleased to meet you,’ he said. ‘I’m Paul Harrigan and this is my colleague, Grace Riordan. How are you?’
The sociability was wasted. She brushed past him, ignoring his offered hand, and returned his introduction by looking them both up and down as though they had dropped in for the day from outer space.
‘Do you mind if we don’t bother with all the crap,’ she said. ‘I need to talk to Greg for a few moments alone first but I’d like to get this over and done with as soon as we can if you don’t mind. I have got other things to do today.’
‘Be my guest, Ria. I’ll even open the door for you,’ Harrigan replied affably.
‘How would you like to be locked in a small room with her?’ Grace commented, after the interview room door closed on the case worker’s back.
Harrigan grinned. ‘Yeah, she’s a real charmer. Don’t let her throw you, Grace — I’m assuming that’s what she’s up to. Whatever she does, you take your time and you take it gently. Just keep coaxing him.
I’ll keep her in line.’
‘Okay,’ she replied.
They waited around a little longer until the door was finally opened to them.
‘I’ve already told him who you are,’ Ria Allard said, as they came inside. ‘You don’t have to bother with that. He knows your names and why you’re here.’
‘We have to tell him anyway, Ria. I’m sure you know that,’
Harrigan replied, smiling in a businesslike way.
Harrigan went through the ritual, giving Grace the opportunity to look the case worker over. Her hair was dyed too black for her ageing face and she had reduced her eyebrows to a thin painted line. Anger was her most obvious quality; she sat beside Greg Smith seething with unspoken rage. The introductions finished, Harrigan sat back a little from the table, leaving it to Grace.
‘Hi, Greg,’ she said. ‘How are you?’
‘How do you think he is?’ the case worker answered for him.
‘You’ve hauled him in here on some wild pretext, he’s hardly had any breakfast. What do you think he’s feeling like?’
‘Maybe he’d like to tell me that for himself,’ Grace replied with her tough, sweet smile, and then repeated for him, ‘How are you?’
The boy shrugged. He had a long, thin face that was hollowed out from the nose across to the cheekbones and his hair straggled onto his shoulders. He twisted his red beanie in his hands and glanced quickly from one person to the next. The room was lit with bright lights which left no shadows in the corners. Everything in his edgy movements told Grace that the walls were closing in on him.
‘I’m okay,’ he said eventually.
‘I’ll start by asking you about the car, Greg. Okay?’
‘Whatever you want,’ he replied quickly.
In the background, the case worker snorted in contempt.
‘Where did you find it?’
‘It was just on the road. Nowhere.’
‘Nowhere? You can’t remember where it was?’
‘No.’
‘What about the other boy? What can you tell us about him?’
‘He was just there. I don’t know anything about him. I never saw him before.’
The boy gave a loose smile, quick and unconvincing. Grace waited for a moment.
‘Why did you take it down to Macdonaldtown Station to torch it?
Is it because you live near there?’
‘Good place for it,’ he replied, shrugging and trying to grin. ‘That’s all.’
‘In the New Life Ministries refuge,’ Grace continued, ‘just up and over the hill. That’s where your guardian, Preacher Graeme Fredericksen, lives as well. He’s not here today, he’s not answering his phone. Do you know why that is?’
‘Why are you asking him that?’ the case worker asked.
‘Just let him answer, Ria,’ Harrigan said quietly.
‘I don’t know. He’s busy, I guess. I don’t care, I don’t want to fucking see him.’
The boy’s hands were twisting at his beanie and he was shaking.
‘Why not? We’d like to see him if we could find him.’
At this, there was a change in the boy. He became still, glancing from Grace to Harrigan, an indefinable expression on his face.
‘Are you afraid of him, Greg?’ Grace asked.
‘No.’
The word had an echo in the small room. The boy seemed almost to smile as he said it.
‘Did you like living in the refuge?’ Grace asked in the silence.
The case worker stirred a little in her seat but did not intervene. The boy glanced at her sideways.
‘It’s just a place,’ he said, speaking in a flat voice. ‘I’m not going back there again, so what does it fucking matter?’
‘No, you’re not,’ Grace replied, watching his face and trying to pin down whatever he was feeling. ‘Why did you want to torch the car?’
‘I wanted to see it burn.’
‘You like that?’
‘Yeah,’ he said, throwing it back at her, ‘I do. I like seeing that. It makes me feel good.’
‘You like it,’ she said very gently. ‘Do you like being in rooms like this too? Being questioned like this. You like being in Kariong? Does that make you feel good?’
‘Yeah,’ he said, picking at his fingernails, ‘I fucking love it.’
He looked up at her, smiling. She was silent at the sight of the desolation in his face.
‘You don’t have to live like this, Greg,’ she said, leaning towards him.
‘You really don’t.’
‘You say that. And that’s all you fucking know. What’s going to fucking change in my life? Nothing. There’s nowhere I can go where anyone wants me. Except here.’
His body language said that he was worn out. Grace felt a nudge in her feelings, a sudden realisation as she looked at him.
‘Where anyone wants you,’ she said. ‘Does no one want you?’
‘No, they fucking don’t,’ he said quietly.
‘Don’t bully him.’
The case worker interrupted, sounding as if she had just remembered that she should put in her two cents worth. Harrigan almost smiled but did not speak.
‘You would have seen the car burn, Greg,’ Grace continued. ‘There was enough petrol on it. It would have gone up like a Christmas tree.
There would have been nothing left. And maybe nothing left of you, if you’d been standing close enough. You did that because someone does want you.’
The boy looked at her but did not answer.
‘Those clothes in the boot,’ she continued, ‘put them together and you know what you have? A young girl. That’s what those pieces add up to. She wants you. That’s why you wanted those clothes to disappear off the planet. So you could protect her. Where did you find them? Were they already in the car? Or did you put them in the boot so you could burn everything in one go?’
‘They were just there. I never touched them.’
‘So when we check them or the boot or anything about them, will we find your fingerprints? Anything that ties them to you?’
‘It doesn’t matter if you do,’ he replied, quite calm.
‘Why not?’
He shrugged, ever so slightly, looking to the side.
‘Because. It just doesn’t matter. Whatever you say. Nothing matters.’
‘Yes, it does. You matter. And she does. She matters. She matters to you, you matter to her,’ Grace said. ‘She’s smaller than you. Small and thin. Just a little girl. When did you see her last? After yesterday morning?’
He became absolutely still, there was just the soft sound of his breath.
‘She fell. When she was running away. Did you know that? Did she tell you? She landed quite hard,’ Grace said. ‘She landed on her hands and knees. She tore her gloves and she scraped her hands. It must have hurt.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ he said very quietly.
‘She didn’t tell you.’
‘That’s entrapment,’ Ria said, quickly. ‘Don’t you say anything, Greg.’
The boy did not reply to either of them.
‘There’s a lot of blood on those clothes, Greg. I saw the shooting later and that was the first thing I thought. How much blood there was.’
‘So fucking what if there was blood?’
Grace leaned closer to him. She spoke to him directly, cutting everyone else out.
‘This is not something she can walk away from, Greg. This is something that means people come after her until they find her, no matter what. You must know that. Maybe you even told her that -
you can’t walk away from this because it’s going to find you wherever you go. What matters is how you deal with it.’
Again there was silence.
‘Do you want to leave her out there? What do you think might happen to her if you do? Is she going to end up dead?’
The boy leaned forward, pressing his elbows on the table and bracing his fists against his forehead. He looked up at Grace once, his mouth a thin pressed line, and then looked down again. He shook his head from side to side.
‘Just tell me,’ Grace said. ‘Tell me who she is. Just do that and we can put a line under this. You can and she can. Before something does happen to her.’
He shook his head again.
‘Yes,’ she said, speaking urgently, ‘finish it now. Stop it where it is.
Just tell me who she is.’
Again he shook his head slowly. No. No.
‘Why not?’ Grace asked. ‘Why not? Who are you going to save?
You can’t save her from this. It’s too late for that. It was too late as soon as she pulled that trigger. The only thing you can do is salvage what you can for her. That’s the only way you can help her and help yourself. You can do that for yourself. You can salvage something for you.’
He began to hit the sides of his head with his fists.
‘Don’t do that,’ she said, ‘don’t hurt yourself.’
‘No,’ he said, his voice strained with tears, ‘I am not fucking going to do it. No.’
He repeated no, no, no and then leaning forward, struck his forehead hard on the table several times, quickly. Ria Allard stood up at once and ran back quickly towards the wall while Harrigan hit the emergency button.
‘You stop that now!’ Grace was standing up, stretching across the table, shoving him back hard with both hands. He stopped like a bird in mid flight at her touch. He had blood on his forehead where he had split open his skin.
Harrigan stood back, watching. When the uniformed officers arrived, he waved them to stay back, indicating they should wait.
‘That was stupid,’ Grace said to the boy, genuinely angry. ‘Do you see this? Look at that — I don’t want this from you.’ She reached forward and wiped the blood from his forehead with a tissue and showed it to him, throwing it on the table. ‘Do you think anybody really cares if you make yourself bleed? No, they don’t. They love seeing it happen. They stand around and they watch and they cheer.
They say, oh, do that again, please, a bit more blood this time, thanks, and a lot more pain. The more you do it, the more they like it, they get hooked on it. Do you really want to give anyone that satisfaction? No, you don’t. Never do that to yourself. Never, never do that.’
The tension was gone from the air as the boy sat staring at her. He shrugged, a gesture closer to despair than aggression. She sat down again.
‘I do what I fucking like,’ he said, speaking only to her, ‘because it doesn’t matter. I’ve got to get that into your head. You’re not going to know who I am if you don’t know that.’
‘No,’ she said, leaning forward again, ‘things do matter. They do.
You matter.’
‘No.’ He spoke with finality.
‘You can’t believe that about yourself.’
This time he didn’t reply.
The case worker moved forward to stand behind him. ‘The interview is over,’ she said.
‘We’re just getting started, Ria,’ Harrigan replied.
‘No. He needs a doctor. This interview is over.’
‘I didn’t mean him. I meant you. Sit down,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Sit down, Ria. This won’t take long.’
‘Can you get this boy to the medical officer, thanks,’ Harrigan said to the waiting officers. ‘This lady will join him a little later when she’s finished here.’
‘I get to go now, do I?’ Greg asked.
‘You do,’ Harrigan replied, his face expressionless.
Grace took one of her cards out of her jacket pocket and underlined her name before passing it the boy.
‘That’s my name and number. If you want to talk to me, you can call me.’
‘Why?’ he asked, looking at it.
‘Just take it. Just in case. You never know when you might need something.’
He shrugged and pocketed it.
‘Don’t hurt yourself,’ she said.
He looked at her, directly in her eyes, and smiled. She understood him.
‘Don’t,’ she said but he only kept smiling to himself as he left the room.
‘What did you mean by going on with all that bumf? It matters,’
the case worker mocked Grace, after the door had closed behind Greg.
‘I mean, he should be on suicide watch,’ Grace snapped, her colour high under her daily paint.
‘You’re panicking a bit there, aren’t you? He’s always like that.’ Ria was dismissive. ‘Or are you worried you might be responsible?’
Grace had opened her mouth to reply when Harrigan forestalled her.
‘Okay, Ria,’ he said quickly, ‘just a few quick questions. It won’t take long. He knows her, doesn’t he? He knows who this girl is. So I think it’s a fair bet you do as well. I’m asking you. Who is she?’
‘No, I don’t know. Why should I?’
‘You’re such a good friend of his, Ria,’ Grace said, needling. ‘He would have confided in you, surely?’
‘No. Why should he? He doesn’t trust anyone.’
She looked away when she said this, her voice shaking a little.
‘What’s her name?’ Harrigan asked.
‘Whose name?’
‘This girl. The one who shot two people in a back alley yesterday.
What’s her name? You know who she is. You know who he hangs out with.’
Harrigan was making it clear he did not want to be pissed about.
The woman almost shouted at him in reply.
‘No, I don’t. I do not know that. No way are you putting that one on me.’
‘Ria, I thought those people might be a matter of concern to you.
The way they are to us.’ Harrigan was calm in response to her anger.
The case worker stared at him with a look of unashamed and intense fury.
‘Yeah, well. They matter, don’t they? I get to concern myself with the people who don’t. But why are you asking me all this stuff? Why aren’t you out there going after Mr Preacher Graeme Fredericksen?
He’s supposed to know these things too, you know. He’s even supposed to care. Why don’t you talk to him?’
‘We’re trying. He’s not answering his phone at the moment,’
Harrigan replied after a short pause.
‘Is that right? I am so surprised.’
She spoke softly, with an unexpected depth of hatred. They were both momentarily silent, watching her.
‘Not someone you’d want to call a friend in that case, Ria,’ Grace said, disturbed by the woman’s expression.
‘Fredericksen? Of course he’s my friend. He’s everybody’s friend.
He’s our latest wonder boy. He wowed the high-ups in the Commission, they think he walks on water. They gave him everything he wanted. Approved his charity, got him his operating grant.’ She drew breath, as if about to cry. ‘But you never know. Never know with anyone, do you? People lie to you all the time.’
Don’t they, though, Grace thought without compassion.
‘He’s your wonder boy? They’re rare. I’ve never been able to find one,’ she fished.
‘No? People like him are going to solve all our problems. And they’re not going to spend any money doing it either. Oh, no, they’re going to make money. They’re going to go out there and they’re going to save all the lives we couldn’t. And the rest of us can just pack up our tents and go home.’
Grace thought that a white toxic fury had consumed every portion of energy Allard had to offer. Harrigan watched the case worker, repelled by a degree of anger that he saw as uncontrolled and useless.
They sat in unrelenting silence, looking at each other.
‘Is that it?’ Ria asked. ‘Can I go and see to Greg now?’
‘That’s it.’ Harrigan stood up and opened the door quickly. ‘I’m sure he’s waiting for you. You can go.’
She was gone immediately. When they stepped out into the corridor after her, she was already moving away at a fast pace, her escort hurrying behind her. There was an awkward pause as they watched her disappearing back.
‘Nice try, Grace,’ Harrigan said. ‘For a moment there, I thought you had him.’
‘Yeah. But I didn’t quite get there,’ Grace replied, thinking, no, he was never going to tell me, there had been no point in tormenting him the way she had.
‘You shouldn’t have let her bait you,’ he was saying with that detached look of his. ‘You stay out of any games they want to play.
You don’t give them anything.’
Grace felt a little more heat in her cheeks underneath her make-up.
‘Maybe not,’ she replied, ‘but it is his life. He should still be on suicide watch, whatever she says.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘Yes, I do. I meant that.’
‘All right, if that’s what you think, we’ll look into it. I don’t want a dead witness. I’ll get Trev to call them, they should pay attention to him.’
It was not a put-down. She had no clout, she knew it.
‘Do I get to talk to him again?’ she asked, as they walked down the corridor.
‘Yes, you do. You got to him and we need to make use of that. That was a good start, we’ll see how we go from here. It’ll be easier the next time around. For one thing, you probably won’t have her breathing down your neck. I think you’ll get it out of him.’
He seemed pleased at the thought and pleased with her. I got to him, Grace thought but did not say. Is that really all I was doing in there? Nothing else? Didn’t that boy matter more than that? She would have liked to ask Harrigan the question but she did not want to push her luck. Right now, she only wanted to escape for a desperately needed cigarette.