Chapter 5
5
Grey
How do you take your guilt? It was like the intruder had seen the etchings on his soul, dug her dirty fingernails into the purple bruises.
He double checked the message on his phone. Giovanni Barbarani: Family meeting 0930hrs.
His watch, not the monstrosity from Luca but his trusty, cracked watch read 9.29 a.m.
Jogging up to the Barbarani mansion, Grey felt like he’d just blown through an entire magazine. His nose still tingled with the aftereffects of her elbow, the sensation of just having snorted chlorine burning his sinuses. Every part of his body that had touched some part of her was blistering like she was toxic. When he’d leant over the balcony to stop her escaping, his vision had been completely compromised by the absence of her clothing.
The old Grey would let it go. The Grey before Sophie, before the party – he would have simply realigned his hammer lock and escorted Maxella Conrad off the property, the other hand speed dialling the Bindi Bindi cops. They always picked up when they saw Grey’s number.
The old Grey didn’t second-guess himself.
He quickly found the number of Detective Sergeant Terence Bradford of Bindi Bindi Cove police station. Grey had all the police officers’ official and personal numbers.
He crossed the limestone bridge over the turquoise lagoon snaking around the mansion. As he switched the phone to his right ear, he could have sworn he saw something move by the Lego-angled bushes. The sensation that someone was watching him crawled over his skin but he couldn’t find the source. Probably just her , spying from the window of his home.
‘Greyson, how can I be of service?’ Detective Bradford’s tone was light, but Grey didn’t miss the hint of wary sarcasm like Grey was a troubled, wayward son, calling for a bank account injection.
‘Hey, Terry. You think you can run a name for me, see if this woman’s a cop like she says she is?’
‘Anything for my favourite Barbie Bitch. What’s the name?’
Grey gritted his teeth. Barbie Bitch wasn’t the worst thing Grey had been called in his life, but every time he heard it, the photos and videos he had of multiple members of the Bindi Bindi police station became more difficult to not release for public and spouse consumption. ‘Maxella Conrad.’
‘Don’t need to run it, mate, I know who that is. Surprised you don’t.’
Terry knew Max? ‘She’s a cop?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Be straight with me. I’m about to be executed for missing a meeting deadline, but you know what happens to the footage from your work Christmas party three years ago in the event of my death.’
Terry invoked a few of his other aliases for Grey that were objectively worse than Barbie Bitch , then got on with it. ‘Max was a cop – great one too. On track to be Commissioner one day, they all said.’
‘So what happened?’
‘She’s been in prison. She was arrested for serious assault – Christ, when was it? Gotta be at least a year ago now. The guy almost died.’
‘ Prison? Assault? ’
I was at a prison all morning.
He’d assumed she’d googled everything she knew about Kaine Skinner, although it had been suspicious she knew Libby Johnston’s real name – that was harder to find online.
This was worse. He hung up on Terry and typed the letters into his phone.
The first photograph was a mugshot. His vision blurred.
Max Conrad hadn’t heard about this supposed murder plot in the family meeting room as she ‘visited’ the prison as a cop. She’d been an inmate. She’d probably laughed about it with Libby Johnston over a pack of cigarettes she’d won for shiving someone in the shower.
He assessed his options.
One: leave the meeting and go and get the fugitive he’d let run loose in his cottage. Throw her off the premises and organise a restraining order. Take the chance she’d been lying about the Kaine Skinner/La Marca murder plot.
Two: assume that Max Conrad, being an ex-cop, wouldn’t be stupid enough to run away from prison and had probably been released on parole. Keep his job by attending the meeting and checking covertly on his NannyCam to make sure she wasn’t trying to pawn his belongings or burn his house down. Then, because he’d lost all confidence in his own instincts, waste his morning pretending to hear her out.
But giving her any more oxygen to purport this ridiculous murder story would be signing his own resignation letter (see also: coronial inquest report). The last time Grey had been wrong had almost cost him his job – and Giovanni’s trust. And a beautiful, cunning woman had been at the centre of that mistake too.
He couldn’t risk ignoring this. Even though chances were he’d become a viral meme for the Barbarani security guards and Jett for eternity – a punch line for them to pass down through generations of their own families.
‘Someone’s dead.’
Nella’s voice shouldn’t have surprised him. He was always aware of his surroundings, always anticipating the next move. But this morning he felt like he was swimming blindfolded through a current of thick, black maple syrup.
The eldest Barbarani sibling stood at the top of the white marble staircase Grey had somehow made his way to while arguing with himself.
‘What!?’ He bounded up the stairs, heart in throat, hand on gun.
Nella made a face like he’d forgotten to put on pants. ‘Calm down, Liam Neeson. I meant you – you’re dead. Did you forget who you work for?’
‘You can’t just say stuff like that. It’s my job to take that shit seriously.’
Do you and I have different definitions of the word ‘ murder’?
Focus. Giovanni. Meeting.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ Nella demanded as they took the stairs two at a time, her red-soled Louis Vuittons clicking in time with his leather dress shoes, which he’d never quite got used to. Giovanni had a strict dress code for his employees – guns and designer Italian footwear were non-negotiable.
‘Didn’t sleep well.’
‘Sex usually helps with that.’
‘Actually, I think you’ll find sex is best if you’re awake.’
Nella shot him a familiar look. He knew where this was going, and if he quickened his pace, he could probably reach the meeting room before it did.
It was rich for the Barbaranis to chastise him about his personal life, seeing as he’d spent his night off trying to save Luca from a mauling at the hands of Western Australia’s most rabid bachelorettes. Maybe he would have gone into town. Had a pint. Or a gin. They did nice gin down at that place on the estuary – isn’t that what Nella had said? Maybe he would have met a girl. Someone on holiday, or a wine tour. Not a local. All the locals knew him. And for some inexplicable reason they thought he was out of bounds. Property of the Barbaranis.
The inexplicable reason was actually explicable. When they were about seven years old, Antonella Barbarani had declared that she had absolutely no interest in Grey romantically, however, no one else was entitled to him. He was off limits. Trespassers would be prosecuted. Literally – Nella was now a lawyer. And that pimp-like over-protectiveness had been cute at seven, but now, almost twenty-five years later, it was getting a bit tired.
But out-of-town women were oblivious to Nella’s wrath. If they were from Perth, they were probably aware of the Barbaranis, the same way people are aware of tiger snakes when they go bush walking. The Italian dynasty Grey had served since he was a boy was a tourist attraction, just like the chocolate factory and the caves down here. For Grey, they had always been his work, just like they’d been his father’s work. They were the only ones who’d take in a soldier who’d been dishonourably discharged. And for that, he supposed, he owed them his life.
And he wouldn’t have gone into town. He would have gone to the gym.
‘You’ve got a frangipani in your hair.’ She wacked the side of his head and, true enough, a white, waxy flower fell onto his arm, then down the balustrade. It landed at the bottom of the floor-to-ceiling wine cabinet that stretched across the entire ballroom – wine stacked like relics behind museum glass, or coffins in a mausoleum.
‘Wind must have blown it.’
‘Greyson.’
‘Antonella.’
They passed the stern, glaring portrait of Emilio Barbarani, Nella’s grandfather, the creator of the famous sangue and catalyst for the permanent headache beneath Grey’s skull. Emilio’s frown deepened impossibly as Grey passed. He couldn’t really understand Italian, except the swearwords, but he knew the bronze inscription under Emilio’s face read: The secret is in the wine.
‘You can’t hate all women forever because of Sophie.’
Woah. ‘I don’t hate women.’ Best not to mention the one he had locked up in his house.
‘Frankie and I don’t count.’
‘I’ve never thought of you as a woman.’
A necessary right-hook in their verbal spar but also kind of true. Maybe it’s because they grew up together and he’d watched her stuff spirelli up her nose and competed in farting competitions with her and her brothers.
‘I’m starting to worry you’re like that ghost on American Horror Story and you can’t leave the property because you actually died a long time ago and you’re bound here forever.’
Grey made a sound that he thought was a non-committal grunt, but Nella’s knowing glare suggested it had landed otherwise.
‘If you didn’t look like you were thinking about all the different ways to stab someone all the time, you’d be semi decent-looking. Women like you, Grey, I’ve seen it.’
Sure. Women liked him because he was the closest they could get to the Barbaranis.
‘Not everyone’s like her,’ Nella said when he didn’t respond.
Not everyone. But Sophie had shown him his weakness – and he wasn’t in the business of owning a weakness.
‘It’s all because of the patriarchy,’ Nella said, just as Grey was about to switch lanes and try to ask about a possible murder threat without actually asking about a possible murder threat.
‘Sophie wrote that article about your family because of the patriarchy?’
‘Being beautiful screws women up,’ Nella said.
One more level of stairs, then Grey’s opportunity to throw murder casually into this train wreck of a conversation would be lost.
Nella was probably right but Grey had made his decision. ‘Not every grenade’s going to detonate,’ he said. ‘But if you don’t act like all of them are going to, you’re dead.’
‘My mistake,’ Nella said as they reached the enormous door to the sala da pranzo. ‘The problem’s not your permanent “I’m about to behead you” face, it’s you calling women grenades .’
My problem is the convict I’ve just let loose in my home.
And a potential assassination.
‘Nella, have you heard—’
‘ It’s all merda !’
‘Did he say murder ?’ Grey hissed as Giovanni’s voice reverberated through the door.
‘ Merda means “shit”. They’re talking about the poisonings. Alleged poisonings.’ But Nella’s mouth remained tight.
Could the poisonings Grey read about last night be connected to whatever Max thought she knew about Kaine Skinner and a murder?
No. She’s a criminal.
‘This gets shut down, today!’
Nella winced at the fierceness of her father’s conviction. Grey’s hand remained on the door handle, waiting for the aftershock to settle before he went in with medical aid.
Tomaso Barbarani’s voice came next. ‘Do you want me to recall the batch, signore?’
‘Suck hole,’ Nella muttered.
‘Idiota.’
Grey raised his eyebrows at Nella; even golden-boy Tomaso hadn’t been spared.
‘We may as well hand over our profits to the La Marcas or the latest pierced, ponytailed drunkard masquerading as a boutique vino maker.’
Was there more to Giovanni’s anger besides the potential media scandal that could ensue if these poisonings didn’t stop?
‘If there’s something in the wine making people sick,’ Tomaso countered, ‘the worst thing that could happen is more cases popping up in the media.’
‘Or, you know, people dying.’ A different voice.
Grey turned to Nella, unable to hide his shock. ‘Frankie’s here?’
‘Apparently.’ Nella rolled her eyes. ‘Mama must have promised to donate to Greenpeace again, or maybe Luca bribed her with a new stolen Melbourne Cup survivor in the stables.’
‘No one’s dying.’ The sound of hard knuckles against wood. ‘There’s nothing wrong with the vino.’
‘Father’s right,’ Tomaso said. ‘No chance.’
There was always a chance. Hands sweating more than he cared to admit, he unlocked his phone, covering the screen so Nella couldn’t see. The grey and white criminal was standing with her back to the kitchen camera, head swivelling like one of those deranged clowns at a carnival. Her basically bare arse was pretty much level with the camera hidden in the kettle.
‘Told you to put some bloody clothes on,’ he muttered.
‘Excuse me?’ Nella raised an eyebrow.
‘Nothing.’ Grey locked his phone, his chest tightening. ‘C’mon.’
He pushed through the door with the same feeling in his gut as he would have stepping off a cliff, Nella behind him. The offspring, minus Nella – Luca, Tomaso and Francesca – were all in their designated positions they’d held at the table since their chubby legs had been stuffed into highchairs. No one looked up except Frankie, who waved, her face all teeth and sparkling eyes. Grey just nodded, knowing any obvious movement could alter the atmosphere of the room, which was controlled by the man at the head of the table to catastrophic proportions.
He’d learnt the hard way never to apologise for being late. Giovanni believed a real man didn’t show weakness by admitting fault, but instead made up for it through his actions.
‘I’ll shut down what I can,’ Grey said, taking his seat beside Tomaso, who shuffled his chair away. Not in a let me make more room for you way, but more I don’t want to catch your contagious tardiness and lack of fashion sense.
Guess Grey not taking Tom’s call last night was less water under the bridge and more spitting lava under a plank of rusted knives. The only time Tom had ever come close to admitting he needed Grey was when his trip to the city was foiled by the car he was in (Bessy’s sister; Irene, the yellow Lamborghini) spinning off course and narrowly missing a tree. Tom had called Grey from the backseat, threatening to fire him if he didn’t get his arse down there and murder Jett. But otherwise, Tomaso acted like the role of the Fixer did not exist.
He tugged at his earlobe as he watched Grey sit, his manicured nails grazing the edge of the same ‘short back and sides’ haircut he’d had since he was seventeen. The earlobe tug was one of Tom’s nervous tics. But Grey couldn’t think about that right now.
Luca was wearing clothes and, as far as Grey could tell, had sorted out the erection. The two men exchanged a look that said: let’s never mention that last time we did this one of us was chasing a semi-naked woman down a wall and the other was swinging a cricket bat futilely at the situation. But Grey didn’t need to worry about Luca broaching the subject of Max at the family dining table. For all his bravado, there was no way he’d risk telling his father he’d not only brought the woman he’d been auctioned off to as punishment back to the estate but she’d also escaped down a trellis and, for all Luca knew, was now running loose in the grounds.
‘I’ll make sure the police don’t get involved,’ Grey added, unwillingly accepting the plate of tiramisu and espresso cup Vittoria placed in front of him. His stomach had been uneasy ever since he’d collided with Max at the auction, but refusing food from an Italian woman was considered treason on this estate.
Giovanni ignored Grey, which was, statistically, the best outcome. But if he wasn’t directing his anger towards Grey’s tardiness, then Gio must be under extreme stress. Pointing out others’ inadequacies was his most marketable skill, after carrying out his late father’s wine legacy.
So, how to bring up a potential murder plot without: a) Gio piercing his carotid artery with a tiramisu fork or b) everyone descending into toilet-paper-hoarding-early-pandemic panic.
Grey sipped his espresso.
‘Has anyone considered the possibility that someone poisoned the wine deliberately?’ Nella asked.
‘Get your toxic positivity away from me.’ Luca shook his head. The rims of his eyes were redder than Grey had realised this morning and his hair was flopping into his eyes like Baa Baa Black Sheep in dire need of a shearing. Grey wished he’d learned by now how to stop what was about to happen.
‘The La Marcas were going to be my next call,’ Grey said as calmly as possible, avoiding Luca’s eyes. ‘After I speak to Poppy Raven.’
‘Of course it has to be the La Marcas,’ Luca snapped. ‘Everything’s about the La Marcas.’
‘Shut your mouth!’ Gio spat. Biscotti and coffee sprayed on the white tablecloth like specks of dried blood.
‘Or what?’
‘I’ll shut it for you. For good.’
Death threats were a standard part of any Barbarani family meeting. Normally Gio directed them at people outside the family, though.
‘Grey’s got it under control,’ Nella said. ‘Don’t you?’ She shot him a look.
‘Absolutely.’ After I deal with the ex-prisoner who’s locked in my house screaming about a murder, I’ll get right on stopping the current PR nightmare. Just an ordinary Friday.
‘One last thing.’ Grey hated himself for this, but he had to be one hundred per cent sure that if there was any truth to Max’s words, he was prepared. ‘I want to increase security at the gala tomorrow night. Don’t want any media that we haven’t invited or don’t trust getting in.’
Nella threw him a sympathetic look. Shut up, Nella! I’m not talking about Sophie.
‘If you’re just gonna talk about the gala, can I go?’ Frankie sucked on an escaping black curl. ‘Seeing as I’m not coming?’
Gio stood suddenly. Everyone looked up. Even Luca. Even Frankie.
He was by no means a tall man. But he was radioactive, with power that was destined to breed cancerous cells within everyone who stayed within his inner circle for too long. His face didn’t smile. It had never been taught how. He was terrifying when he was happy, and positively murderous when angry. ‘Every last one of you will be there,’ Giovanni said, his voice like smooth wine laced with razorblades. ‘There is no discussion, Francesca.’
‘I don’t want anything to do with this family’s barbarian, capitalist bullshit,’ Frankie said. ‘I’m changing my name!’
Frankie threatened to change her name every few months. But the Barbarani name came in useful when you needed to talk yourself out of an arrest when a peaceful protest became not so peaceful.
‘Billionaires account for a million times more greenhouse gases than the average person!’ she said. ‘If you put the money you’re spending on this stupid gala or your hotel towards investments into a low-carbon economy, you could literally save the world!’
They’d heard this all before. Giovanni sneered. ‘Unlike other global crusades,’ he said, ‘the climate change movement, much like you, Francesca, has historically been a failure. I do not invest in failure.’
‘So why did you pay for Tom’s business degree then, if it’s just resulting in the entire sangue line being pulled from the shelves?’ Luca lay down on the train tracks in place of his sister. Grey groaned inwardly. ‘Should have invested in La Marca Pinot Noir instead.’
‘ THAT’S IT! ’ Giovanni whipped off the tablecloth. Plates and Vittoria’s Venetian espresso cups shattered. Vittoria screamed. Frankie cowered. Luca laughed. Tomaso and Nella looked sideways at each other: which of us has to pack up the broken dolls today?
Grey knew when he was excused. He could fix almost anything for the Barbaranis. But their relationship with each other was not one of them.
‘Not yet, Hawke.’
An entire life of servitude and he still wasn’t on a first-name basis with his boss.
Grey remained standing while the others filed out, Nella and Luca grimacing at him like this was the last time they’d see him before he walked to the gallows. Tomaso was already on his phone, business as usual. Frankie dug her knuckles into her eyes, blinking back frustrated tears.
When the door closed behind Vittoria, the room seemed to take in a deep breath, waiting for Giovanni to speak. He stood at the window, hands clasped behind his back – a monarch surveying his kingdom. ‘The fields are not right,’ he said eventually, when the walls of the sala da pranzo were screaming for air.
Grey knew better than to try to answer.
‘When your father worked here, my grounds were the perfect verde colour, no matter what the season. I have never seen grass like that since he passed.’
‘He’d be honoured to hear you say so, signore.’
‘I could trust him,’ Gio said, ‘with my grass, my land. A man’s surroundings matter. We are all products of our environments, aren’t we, Hawke?’
Grey gave a nod. ‘Signore.’
‘You are not like him,’ Gio said. ‘Do you suppose you are more like your mother?’
He allowed the familiar feeling to pass through him at the mention of her – like missing a step going down the stairs.
‘I doubt it, signore. Though I don’t know much about her.’
Except that she was beautiful. And she cut out his father’s heart when she left in the dead of night, when Grey wasn’t even a year old.
Gio nodded. ‘I am not like my father either. He wanted our dynasty to be vino, only vino. He saw five steps ahead, but I see ten.’
‘Signore, about the gala—’
‘The judge made her decision,’ Gio continued. ‘Hotel Barbarani is happening. Construction starts in August.’
Right. ‘Best not to tell Frankie until after the gala,’ Grey said.
‘I don’t need you to remind me of my children’s shortcomings, thank you, Hawke.’ Giovanni faced Grey head-on like they were two trucks about to collide on a single country road. ‘And speaking of shortcomings, it was your job to make sure that picture of Francesca tied to my building company’s dozer did not make headlines.’
Grey bowed his head, a prisoner before his executioner.
‘And I do not appreciate the fact that Antonella’s face was plastered all over that despicable article ...’
Top 10 Rising Stars in Australian Courts.
‘Have you not learnt your lesson after that reporter?’ he continued.
How do you take your guilt, Mr Fixer? She’d looked up at him with those big, green eyes, lashes blinking like she was about to kneel down and ...
For fuck’s sake.
‘If I could do it over again—’
‘You wouldn’t have done her?’
Grey clicked his jaw. Nella’s voice filled his head but, irritatingly, so did Max’s, screaming ‘murder!’ He stayed silent.
‘I thought your father would have taught you better about women like that.’
Grey’s father’s peppermint and tobacco scent, breath tunnelling down the neck of a Carlton Draught as he slapped Grey’s hand away from the sugar-pink oleander flower. ‘Beauty is nature’s warning of danger, Greyson. The poisonous flower has the most beautiful colours.’
‘The gala. Tomorrow. Nothing will go wrong. I have your word, Hawke?’
‘Of course, signore. There’s just one—’
‘What was that you said about increasing security?’ Giovanni’s eyes almost disappeared into the doughy wrinkles of his face as he squinted at Grey.
‘Just want to be extra cautious, signore, given that the La Marcas are attending and there’s been a—’
‘A what?’
Grey swallowed. ‘Kaine Skinner’s name has cropped up.’
‘Skinner?’ Giovanni shook. Grey got ready to duck, but then his boss’s face cracked open and a belch of laughter escaped. ‘That ugly fuck won’t be showing his face in this town again. He’s still licking his wounds after he sent his own wife to prison. Even the La Marcas are done with him.’
Tell him. Tell him about Max.
‘There anything you’re not telling me, Hawke?’ Giovanni’s face was back to its normal, furious setting.
Tell him.
Grey’s phone buzzed against his thigh. Something was trying to break out of or into his cottage. ‘No, signore. Nothing.’