Harrigan came back to consciousness, unable to see. The noisy, then fading sound of a vehicle driving away had woken him. He didn’t move immediately but instead tried to work out whether he could think, what he could hear, if he felt any pain. Whether anyone was here with him, watching.
At first there was only silence, and then, distantly, the harsh bark of a wattlebird calling. He was trussed up and blindfolded, the elastic of the blindfold pulled tight about the back of his head. His hands were behind his back, numbed and at the same time made painful by the bite of whatever they had used to tie them. Don’t straighten your legs, his mind told him, but there was no rope around his neck. Very slowly and carefully he stretched out and found he was able to move his feet a short distance away from each other. It felt like he’d been hobbled. He realised he was barefoot.
He was lying on his side on what seemed to be a thin and rank mattress. He swung his legs to the ground and managed to lever himself to his feet. In the blackness, he got his balance and took a few deep breaths. He swayed with nausea from whatever drug they had administered, taking some minutes to let his head clear. Wherever he was, it wasn’t in a house. The floor beneath his feet was packed dirt and the place had the feel of some kind of shed. The air smelled of piss and rubbish, like a place where derelicts might sleep. It was too quiet to be in the city; the sound of the bird calls was too close. There was no sound of there being anyone else here with him.
Harrigan took a small step forward. He had been hobbled, but he was able to move with very short and awkward steps. Probably he was supposed to be able to walk, barefoot and blinded, into whatever had been lined up for him. His bonds made him lean forward, as if he was being forced to bow his head to his captors. Carefully he moved, one step at a time, occasionally finding sharp rocks on the floor. Then his foot hit a wall. He turned side on, leaned on it, and followed it around. Soon enough he came to a door. He pushed at it with his foot. It was metal, rattled on its hinges, and sounded like it was secured from the outside by a chain.
As best he could, he tried to trace out its width. It seemed to have a metal strut across the middle and a lip where it met the door frame. He encountered the hinges on the inside, standing out from the metal frame like dog’s balls. He leaned his cheek against the set closest to him. They were large and felt rough-edged around the pin. Old, bulky, possibly steel hinges, probably poor craftsmanship. He touched the door’s lip. It hard a thick, hard edge, rough enough probably to have torn the skin on his cheek.
His legs had been tied at the knee as well as the ankle. He sat down on the dirt and drew his knees up as close as he could to his chin. He leaned his head forward to find out by feel what kind of rope they had used to tie him up with, brushing his cheeks against it. It felt like plastic and had been tied to allow the circulation to flow in his legs. He was definitely meant to be able to walk. It was too uncomfortable to stay in that position any longer than was necessary and he leaned back. He tried to feel what was tying his hands. Not plastic rope, more like electrical wire. Malleable plastic coating, soft copper wire inside, pulled tight enough to bite into his wrists and break into the flesh. Fuck you, he thought.
He stood up and manoeuvred himself into an awkward position that allowed him to press the bonds tying his hands together against the door’s lip. Then he began to saw, pressing hard. You rub something softer against something harder and rougher for long enough and attrition will work; it has to, even on a bluntish edge. The question was whether or not he had enough time. Stamina wasn’t an issue. The certainty that he would die if he didn’t free himself was all the motivation he’d ever need.
His hands were both numb and aching blocks of ice hanging uselessly at the ends of his arms. They hadn’t stinted in the amount of wire they’d wound around his wrists. He stopped thinking about what he was doing and concentrated on something more pleasant: Grace; how they made love. Then he realised he was afraid for her and changed his thoughts. Where was Ellie right now? With his oldest sister, who was first on the list of emergency contacts? Kidz Corner would raise the alarm if neither he nor Grace turned up to collect her; they would ring the contact number at police headquarters he’d given them. But no one would ever find him here. He put that thought to the side and remembered days fishing at Green Cape. Watching the whales swim past in the distance. Stay there. It’ll keep you going.
Once he slipped sideways and grazed his arm badly against the hinges. Later, he slid down to a crouch, to give relief to his back. His legs began to ache instead. As he stood up, he felt the wires around his right wrist begin to loosen. He pulled the bonds apart but the wire hadn’t quite given way. He went back to it and kept going, losing track of time. Then, at last, the wire slipped away from his right hand altogether.
Blood flowed painfully back into his hand and he had to wait until he could use it. Then he slid to the dirt floor and pulled the blindfold from his eyes. It was a black mask. Being able to see felt like liberation in itself, even if he was still in a dark place. Turning his head to the side, he saw thin cracks of daylight marking the outline of the closed door, the thickest band of light being at the foot. Otherwise there was no source of light in this place at all.
The door was old and battered and, while there was a lock, there was no handle on the inside. As he’d thought, it had been chained on the outside; there was no way he could open it. He peered out through a crack at the fading daylight. They had picked him up mid-afternoon and he’d heard them driving away. He had spent a lot of time freeing his hand. They couldn’t have taken him far. Judging by what he could see, he was in some kind of hut in the national park, with a bare space between the door and the surrounding trees.
He looked at his left hand, bringing it close to his face. The wire was knotted too tightly for him to unpick it with his right hand. He went back to rubbing the wire against the door lip, this time facing the door. I look like I’m jerking myself off, he thought. Strangely, freeing this hand seemed just as uncomfortable, almost harder than when both hands had been behind his back. Between rubbing it and pulling at it, the wire finally gave way and he pulled the last of it off. It had cut deeply into both his wrists, bruising them and making him bleed. He had cut himself further while sawing through the wire, and his arm was raw where he’d torn his skin away against the hinges earlier. But his hands were free and he could use them. Again he waited while his left hand stung itself back into life.
He looked around, his eyes adjusting to the shadows. The light from the doorway was too weak to give him anything other than an indistinct view of the hut he was locked in. It was circular and seemed to have been built on the slope of a hill. A few feet away he saw a lumpy mattress, stinking of rot. He checked himself. His belt was gone as well as his shoes. His watch and wallet too. He had been left with nothing except the clothes he stood up in.
He checked the rope that hobbled him. It had been threaded through a loop around his knees and then tied at his feet. With his back against the wall and his knees pulled up as close to his chest as possible, he could still barely reach the knot. He sat on his side, with his feet side on against the door, and reached for it that way. It was probably the best stretching exercise he’d had all year. He worked at it, took breaks, and finally pulled the rope away. By the time he had got himself free, it was so dark he was working by feel.
Despite the blackness, he began to explore by touch the small cell he was locked in. The roof was low, barely more than a few inches above his head. Lifting up his hands, he could reach it easily. It seemed to be made of cement. He followed the wall around; like the roof, it was made of cement. Then his foot knocked against something lying on the floor near the mattress, in line with where his head had been. It skidded against the wall. He searched and picked it up. It was a book, a hardback. He moved closer to the door where there was a little more light. Even here, it was too dark to see what it was but he was fairly certain it was a copy of his own book, Justice Under the Law. What would be the point of leaving any other book here? He tried to see if the title page had been signed but it was too dark. He put the book back on the floor, there being nowhere else for it.
He had left the rope near the door and went back to it. Could he use it for anything? Fix it so that whoever was coming to get him could be tripped when they opened the door? As far as he could tell in the dark, there was nothing to which he could tie the rope to make it work as a tripwire. He did have one advantage. They would be expecting him to be lying on the mattress like a chicken waiting to be slaughtered. He would be waiting for them instead. As best he could in the dark, he moved the cut wires and the rope to where they couldn’t be seen if the door was opened in any kind of a light. Make it appear there was no one in here just to throw them as much as possible. Then he sat down on the mattress to think.
Time lost definition when you waited in the dark. He was hungry and thirsty but put those things to the side. Feeling he had arrived at nowhere, he leaned against the wall and worked through the possibilities. Killing him could not have been part of his captors’ brief or he would already be in the afterlife, assuming it existed. Someone else must be on their way here to do that. Someone had left a copy of his book here to be part of the action. It was a logic all their own.
He thought about Grace. Whatever reason he was here, she was working. She would have her backup; they’d better be doing their job and protecting her. He thought of his daughter and his son. Toby was old enough to take care of his own life, but either himself or Grace had to come out of this alive for Ellie’s sake.
He was so deep in these thoughts that when the sound of a car coming to a stop outside broke the night silence, he was startled. Whoever it was, they hadn’t had their headlights on. Someone got out of the vehicle, and shut the door quietly but audibly behind them. Quickly, Harrigan got to his feet and stood to the side of the door. If anyone opened it, he could get them with a blow to the side of the head.
He listened. In the night silence, he heard soft footsteps approaching the door.
‘Are you in there?’
Harrigan drew in a breath. The last thing he’d expected to hear was a woman’s voice.
‘You must be awake by now,’ she went on. ‘You just wait. There are other people coming. Grace is one of them. We’re going to have fun tonight. Grace is going to watch you burn. Then she’s going to burn herself. You just sit there and think about that.’ She laughed.
Is that right? Harrigan thought. Well, fuck you, whoever you are. He had never hit a woman in his life. His father had sometimes hit his mother when he was drunk, until Harrigan had been big enough to stop him. Watching his father do this, and then, maudlin, beg for forgiveness in the morning, had left Harrigan with a contempt for anyone who did the same. But this wasn’t a woman. This was a murderer who happened to be female.
‘Are you going to talk to me? You can talk. I know you can.’
There was an odd hint of hysteria in the woman’s voice. She was building up her excitement. There was some other edge too. Tears. Why tears?
‘I thought someone was following me tonight. But I got rid of them. No one’s coming to save you. You might as well talk to me. You’re not dying alone. Grace will be with you. And if we can, we’ll get your daughter too. We’ve got something that’ll turn her head to pulp.’
Keep talking, whoever you are. I’m waiting for you. Everything you say makes it easier.
‘Are you going to answer me? Open your fucking mouth. You can still talk.’ Hysteria again, this time wound up to a greater intensity. Strange anger, resentment. ‘Go on. Cry. That’s what you’ll do in the end. Everybody does. They cry and they shit themselves. They all say please when it’s too fucking late. When we open the door, you’ll come crawling out saying please. When you do, she’ll be watching you and it’ll be too fucking late. Then she’ll crawl in the dirt too. Everyone does.’
There was silence again. Still Harrigan waited.
‘You’re going to burn in your own car. We’ve done that before. The first time we ever did anything. I can’t wait to see what it looks like again, what you sound like. What do you think?’
Come in and ask me if you want to know so badly.
‘Joel will be here soon. Maybe fifteen, twenty minutes. That’s all the time you’ve got left. I’m going to piss on your face. You can lie there and drink it. I’ll turn on the lights, I’ll take your blindfold off. You can look up at me before you die.’
You are sick. You are so sick.
Suddenly the bright lights of a car glared through the cracks around the door. Harrigan heard her unlocking the padlock, then removing the chain. Maybe when you’d done this so often before you got arrogant. You didn’t see your victims as anything other than creatures waiting for slaughter, crying for mercy you didn’t have to give.
A key turned in a lock, then the door swung open. The glaring headlights lit up the interior of the hut, revealing only the empty mattress. The woman stopped in the doorway, startled. ‘Where are you?’ she shrieked even as Harrigan came out of the dark and hit her on the side of her head as hard as he could bring himself to hit a woman.
She went down, not quite unconscious. She didn’t seem to be armed. He got hold of the rope they’d used to tie his legs and began to tie her up. She tried to fight and bite him but she was too groggy and had no strength to match his. A stream of obscenities came out of her mouth, barely comprehensible. He still had his handkerchief. He took it out of his pocket and pushed it into her mouth. Then he picked her up and put her on the mattress. She was still making noise and began to wriggle, trying for the door. He looked around. There was nothing to tie her to to keep her in one place. Then she collapsed back, breathing hard. Her eyes rolled up and closed. He pressed her eye, a common test for pain, to see if she was awake. She didn’t respond.
He took the time to look at her. An attractive redhead probably just over forty. Sara McLeod? Nadine Patterson? What name would she answer to? He searched her, found her car keys in her jeans pocket and took them. She had no weapon of any kind and no mobile. He stood up. In the car lights, he saw the book near her head and picked it up. It was Justice Under the Law. He flicked it open to the title page and saw his signature. Bought last night at his launch by Joel Griffin, who was supposedly on his way here right now. It was his MO: everything planned to the last detail.
Carrying the book, Harrigan went outside into the free air, shutting the door behind him. It locked on closure. The key was still in the lock. He took it, then re-chained and re-padlocked the door. The lights of the car were glaring in his eyes and he walked around to the side of the vehicle, cursing whenever his bare feet trod on something sharp. The car was a blue Mazda he hadn’t seen before.
He looked around to see where he was. As he’d guessed, the national park. He’d been locked in a small, squat building situated on a low slope. Probably it had been put here during World War II, some home-defence facility close to the coast where equipment might have been stored or the home guard were expected to fight invaders. Darkened forest surrounded the open area it stood in, at that moment illuminated by the lights of the Mazda. At this time of night, it was a good place for a murder.
He searched the car. There was no gun and no mobile telephone. He opened the boot. A digital video camera and jerry cans of petrol. He closed it and looked up the way it must have come in. A fire trail cut through the bush up a steep slope, presumably towards the nearest ridge. Parked to the side of this trail a short distance up the slope, gleaming palely and pointing downwards to the open space, was Harrigan’s car.
Painfully, he limped up to it. The keys had to be somewhere here. How else was anyone going to turn it into a murder weapon? Then he saw rocks wedged against the front wheels. He tried the door. It opened. This was simple. Turn the whole thing into a missile. Who needs to start the engine? Just set it up so it rolls forward over whatever escarpment is below.
Harrigan was a careful man. He had a spare key concealed on the outside of his car for emergencies. He tossed his book on the front seat and set about checking for it; it was still there. Once he’d retrieved it, he began searching the car. They had taken his mobile, his gun, his backpack with its handy collection of tools. He had no weapon and he couldn’t call for help. How much time did he have? Time to drive out of here and get help? Griffin was coming, Grace with him. Griffin was supposed to be her target not the other way around. They’d be here very soon, if the woman in the hut knew what she was talking about.
Someone had been following her, she said, but she’d got rid of them. Did that mean Grace’s people were out there, tracking her? They had the means to do that. If so, why hadn’t they acted? Or had they already stopped Griffin’s car? He couldn’t know. He did know he didn’t trust Clive. If he drove out now, would he meet Griffin coming in? Where would that leave Grace if she was with him? No, he would wait. He couldn’t leave her alone in this place. There would only be Griffin, one man. She had to be armed as well. That was a point in their favour. And if no one came, then he would leave.
What he most wanted were shoes, but there were none, not even the pair of old thongs he usually tossed in the boot when he was going fishing. There were some rags. He tied them around his feet but they were almost useless. They had left his car tool kit behind. He searched through it and selected the heaviest spanner he could find. There was also the torch he always carried in his car, which was powerful. He took that as well. He made sure the handbrake was on, locked the car and took the keys. Then he went back to the Mazda, turned off the lights and locked that as well.
After this he followed in the direction his car was pointed. A breeze coming up from distant water ruffled his hair. Again wishing he had shoes, he reached the edge of an escarpment and looked down. A short, steepish fall onto rocks, young trees and ferns growing below. Soak the car in petrol and send it down here. Both of them burned to ashes, still alive when the fire was started. These were the people he was dealing with. No point in being sentimental about them.
A small arc of trees extended out from the forest towards the hut, coming closest to it on the far side near the back. He walked into the trees as quickly as he could, crouching down where he could stay hidden. It was a clear starlit night; extinguishing the headlights had brought a sense of peace to the scene. The silence around him deepened; he turned off his torch. In the quiet, he heard the calls of the night birds and rustling in the bush around him. Just the wildlife going about its usual business.
He had been there only a few moments when he became aware of a car making its way down the trail. No engine, no headlights. It was time for something to happen. In the darkness, Harrigan waited. He was supposed to be marked as a dead man, but this time the dead would bite back.