The Tattooed Man (26 page)

W
hen, in the morning, the phone rang next to Grace’s bed, she hoped it was Harrigan.

Instead, the whispered voice was one she had first heard only a few days ago.

‘Grace,’ Daniel Brinsmead said. ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you.’

‘No,’ she said, sitting up in bed and glancing at the clock. It was 11 a.m. ‘How are you?’

‘I wondered if you had any spare time this afternoon. I wanted to talk to you about something.’

‘What?’

‘The police have released a sketch to the media, someone who’s implicated in kidnapping the commander’s son. I’m ringing you because I know him.’

‘You should call the police and talk to them,’ Grace said. ‘If you know where to find him, you have to tell them that immediately.’

‘I haven’t seen him for a number of years. I have a history relating to him. He’s responsible for the way I look now. This is more about my past than your companion’s son.’

‘You should still talk to the police.’

‘I would talk to the commander, but he must have other things on his mind right now and I wondered if you might be prepared to be a bridge between us. This is a personal story. Would you be prepared to come and see me? I don’t usually go out except to go to work so that means coming to where I live. It’s close to the city. I promise you, you’ll be completely safe. I’m not in a position to hurt a fly.’

When the phone rang, Grace had been lying in bed thinking that what she most wanted was for Harrigan to be here with her and for them to make love. The way things were, maybe they never would again. She thought of the gun in her bottom drawer and then tried to think why Daniel Brinsmead might mean her harm. What reason could he have? She was in a mood to walk out on that tightrope once again. It would make her feel better.

‘If it’s important, I can come and talk to you.’ ‘I think it is,’ he said. ‘I should warn you, I’m not much of a housekeeper. But I can make us some coffee.’

‘It’ll be fine. We can just talk. When?’ ‘Early afternoon. I’ll give you the address.’

Grace’s taxi dropped her outside an older-style apartment building up on the hill overlooking Rushcutters Bay Park. The entrance was a wooden-framed double glass door next to a bank of mailboxes. She buzzed the intercom and waited.

‘Grace?’

‘Yes, I’m downstairs.’

‘I’m in the penthouse. I’ll buzz you in.’

An old lift hauled her up slowly to the roof. On stepping out of the iron cage, the view was spectacular. The penthouse took up the western side
of the top floor and looked across the harbour in the direction of the heads. Grace stopped to look over the railings at the park below. Crowds of tiny people covered the grass on the summer’s day. Around them, the city was spread out as an interwoven and chaotic pattern. To the west and the north, high-rises studded the foreshore. The harbour glittered, the Rushcutters Bay marina was packed with pleasure craft.

Close by was a rooftop swimming pool, emptied out by the city’s water restrictions in the continuing drought. Dead pot plants lined the pool’s fence and the gate was locked with a closed sign hung on it. She walked past it to reach the penthouse’s front door. Despite the spectacular view and the bright sunlight, all its curtains were drawn. It was some moments after she had rung the bell that Daniel Brinsmead opened the door. The sight of his face still had the power to shock.

‘Hi,’ she said.

‘Grace. Thanks for coming. I’m afraid the place is a mess and it’s dark as well. I have difficulty with the light. Believe me, I’m not trying to frighten you.’

‘You’re not.’

Even if he had, her gun was within reach in her shoulder bag. Dressed as he was in a white shirt and trousers, there seemed to be no place where he could have concealed a weapon. Through the light fabric she could see that his torso and the full length of his left arm were covered in dressings. At the hem of his trousers, the bandages from another dressing on his left leg were also visible.

She walked inside. He shut the front door behind her but left it on the latch; she could walk out any time she wanted to. His feet were covered with white ankle socks, which also had a medical look,
and he moved awkwardly. A short entranceway took them through to a spacious lounge room that was partially lit by a standard lamp casting a soft light. A high bar stood between this room and a kitchen where the blinds were also drawn and a dull overhead light was on. No one had cleaned up from the last meal and the dishes were piled beside the sink despite there being a dishwasher. To her left, the lounge opened onto a hallway, again partially dark. She saw a row of three closed doors, with a fourth at the end of the hall facing towards the lounge. The apartment was silent. The air was cool, almost chill.

‘I keep the air conditioning up very high, I find it more comfortable that way,’ he said. ‘I hope it’s not too cold. Please sit down. Would you like a drink? Tea? A soft drink?’

‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’

She sat in a damask armchair, taking it for its proximity to the entranceway and the front door. The penthouse had the look of a place that was no one’s home. Sometime ago it had been furnished for hire with an expensive if impersonal veneer, now grubby with use. Used cups and old newspapers had been left lying on any spare surface, including the floor. On the sofa was a pile of car magazines. A stained and empty wine glass and a mobile phone stood on the coffee table. An unfinished game of two-pack patience was laid out on a nearby table. Brinsmead sat on the sofa beside the car magazines, pushing them out of his way.

‘This must look bad,’ he said. ‘I seem to have reached a point in my life where nothing that’s external to me matters. I have a carer who comes in and dresses my left side. She does that in the bathroom and makes sure it’s clean. But outside of
that, I don’t seem to care. Unfortunately I’m in pain a lot of the time. The question is whether it’s bearable or not.’

‘It’s very impressive that you should be running the LPS signature project under those circumstances.’

‘Running that project doesn’t weigh me down as you might think it could. The opposite: it helps. I have to occupy my mind.’

‘I read in your résumé you were in the army once. So was my father. He was a professional soldier. A brigadier.’

‘I was at Sandhurst. I didn’t last that long. I was very young and realised I wasn’t cut out for it. I had the idea that I was going to save the world. The army wasn’t the right place for that, I found out. Also I was very bad at taking orders. I went back to science. I have a doctorate from Durham University. I’ve worked in research institutes most of my working life, mainly in London.’

‘Very successfully,’ Grace said. ‘You said you knew the man who may have abducted Toby Harrigan. What can you tell me about him?’

‘Andreas du Plessis. Yes, I do know him.’

‘If you know his name, you should call the police.’

‘He won’t be using that name here. He’ll be using false papers. I don’t know what his present name will be or where he can be found. If I did, I would have called the police straightaway. It’s more likely they’ll find him using the drawing they have. It’s a very good likeness.’

‘How do you know him?’

Brinsmead seemed to smile in that ruined face. ‘I’m going to have to destroy all the good impressions you have of me,’ he said. ‘I’m not a good man. I’m a very flawed man. But before I do,
do you want to tell me something about yourself? What you do, for example?’

She laughed a little. ‘There isn’t much to tell. I have a dull job.’

‘I find that hard to believe.’

‘I’m a public servant with the Attorney-General’s Department. I collate reports for the minister. It’s not very interesting.’

This description, as far as it went, was true. The reports were classified as top secret and dealt with issues of terrorism, gun running and terrorist financing but they were still reports. Grace worked mainly in intelligence analysis but also occasionally in the field on surveillance. It was nothing she could talk about, not even to Harrigan. If she had been asked why she did this work, she would have said it was to protect people.

‘You went from policing to something that was completely a desk job?’ Brinsmead said.

‘A lot of policing is paperwork. I have a background in law and criminology. I worked for the police because I wanted to have some practical experience.’

‘You make it sound very staid. But you don’t look staid.’

‘It’s just work. I was a singer once, in another life,’ she said. ‘I can sing but I wasn’t cut out to be a performer.’

‘Why not?’

‘You have to put yourself right out there when you perform and it’s always in front of strangers. I didn’t like doing that so I stopped.’

It was another simple sentence behind which lay a history of heartbreak and alcoholism and a worse memory: her old lover who, until recently, had stalked her; the man who had once raped her and
given her the scar on her neck. She never spoke of these things, not even with her father and her brother, who were the only ones who knew the full story. She had hinted at the details with Harrigan but could go no further than that. She knew he had put at least some of the story together but had never tried to ask her any questions about it; she liked it that he hadn’t.

‘You wouldn’t be prepared to sing a few bars for me, just so I have an idea what your voice is like?’ Brinsmead said.

She laughed. ‘No, I don’t do that. Sorry.’

‘Another time maybe. I should get on with why I asked you here. There’s a fact we need to start with. I’m a gambler. It’s a fundamental aspect of who I am. I still gamble, although I don’t do it at the roulette table any more.’

‘Why is it fundamental to you?’

‘It’s how I see the world working. In the end, all life comes down to whether or not you’re holding the right cards. That’s true even for genetics. Someone has the gene for muscular dystrophy or Huntington’s chorea. Do they deserve to? No, of course they don’t, and who could make the judgement that they did? For each of us, it’s pure chance. If that chance goes against you, you can live badly and die violently. I’ve seen the world this way ever since I was thirteen and nothing has changed my mind. I’ve always had to play the odds. Mainly because a few years ago, I didn’t play the odds particularly well. I got involved with Jerome Beck and du Plessis. Or DP as he’s known to his friends, so called.’

‘How?’

‘About five years ago, I was working in London at a science research facility. I met Jerome Beck
there. He was a financial manager. I recognised him when I saw his picture on the net after he was murdered.’

‘But you didn’t tell the police,’ Grace said.

‘No, I didn’t and you’ll know why when I’ve finished this story. I found out Jerome liked to gamble as well. We started going to casinos together. He knew I was badly in debt and getting deeper. He said he could help me. He was involved in a business venture of some kind, building infrastructure in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. If I was interested, I could use my ex-army skills to manage the project and I’d be very well paid. I would only need to be away for a matter of weeks, it was a fly-in and fly-out affair. I think we both accepted implicitly that his offer was a cover for something else and I always assumed it would be criminal in some way. But, as always, I went to the DRC as a gamble. I decided to do that even after I’d researched the country and discovered how dangerous it was. I thought, if this is where the possibilities are, I’ll follow them and see where we end up. God knows, I needed the money badly enough. What are you thinking?’

‘I was wondering why you’d be so open about yourself with me,’ Grace said. ‘I can understand you telling this story to the police but not to someone you’ve only met once.’

‘You used to be a police officer and you’re well known for your connection to another senior police officer.’

‘You’ve checked me out on the web.’

‘Yes,’ Brinsmead said. ‘You see, I’m not talking to you as a complete stranger. I’ve tried to find out something about you. We spoke for a little while at the launch as well. What you’ve said today hasn’t
changed my impression of you. I think you listen to people and that you’re reliable. You understand what people are saying to you.’

‘I like to think my training has made it possible for me to do that,’ she replied carefully.

Brinsmead leaned towards her. ‘It’s something you do naturally,’ he said. ‘At one level, I don’t care who knows this story. To be honest, everything except the essentials has been burnt out of me. I can’t see any reason why I shouldn’t talk with complete honesty about almost anything, including myself. Do you know anything about the DRC?’

‘I know it’s in a state of civil war and there have been terrible atrocities there. I’m sure it’s full of people who’d like to live ordinary lives but aren’t given the chance,’ she said. ‘What was it like for you to be there?’

‘Unimaginable. Not long after I got there, I realised I was involved with illegal diamond trading. I thought I could deal with that. Then I discovered I was the fall guy. I had no criminal history so I was going to be the mule. My problem was, there was no way out for me. The parts of the DRC we were in were very dangerous. The people I was with might have been vile but they were my protection. DP was one of them, he was the boss.
Baass,
the African mercenaries called him. It sounded almost like an insult. At one time, he and his mercenaries raped and killed a woman in front of my eyes. She was probably only twenty. Jerome didn’t involve himself but he didn’t care either. He laughed. “Let DP have his fun,” he said.’ Brinsmead stopped and closed his eyes. ‘I shouldn’t have told you that. I don’t want to bring it back.’

Grace waited.

‘The trouble is, there’s no way I can bring this to the law,’ he said eventually. ‘I have no evidence against them other than my word. At the time I was a debt-ridden gambler. I have no real names for most of them—we didn’t exchange email addresses and telephone numbers. DP was South African, you could tell that by his accent. He may have been in the army once. From the way they spoke to each other, he and Jerome were long-time partners. That’s all I know about any of them.’