Chapter 13
13
Max
Grey made them meet in the cellar. It was the only place, he said, that was soundproof and where they wouldn’t be disturbed by any of the workers.
Turns out it was more than just soundproof. Max lost count of the security measures: passcode, retinal scanner, fingerprint reader. Were they storing wine down here or creating a new Marvel villain?
For a cellar the ceiling was high, but the temperature dropped a few degrees as she descended the wooden steps after Grey. Barrels lined the rough stone walls and the hanging lanterns cast dark shadows across the echoey tiled floor. A portrait hung between two full cases of red wine, and a scowling dark-haired man with a handlebar moustache watched her take in what seemed to be the inside of the beating heart of his dynasty.
Emilio Barbarani, she guessed. ‘What does it say,’ she hissed at Grey, ‘under the portrait?’
‘ Il segreto è nel vino : The secret is in the wine.’
‘Cryptic.’ She shivered involuntarily as Emilio’s descendants started down the stairs.
As they filed in, Max studied each of the Barbaranis. Tomaso’s and Grey’s hair was still damp at the nape of their necks. Grey had done his best to get out of the pool without Max’s perverted eyes seeing anything before he wrapped himself in Frankie’s towel. He hadn’t completely made it. It was a testament to how long it had been since she’d had sex that she was having inappropriate thoughts about the Barbaranis’ Fixer when she was supposed to be focused on getting her job back. But it wasn’t her fault – the man was ridiculous. It looked like he’d never even smelled a carbohydrate.
The absence of Jackie gouged at her. This was the kind of thing they’d talk about for hours. On the phone when they were younger, and then online, separate chats for separate conversations, often at the same time. Max knew exactly what Jackie would have said in her crude, grammatically ignorant messages and what meme she’d attach:
Fuck him with a paper bag over his head then u don’t hav 2 think about his personality. Does he hav nices eyes tho? Cut out holes 4 his eyes.
The meme would be a still from the Lonely Island music video to ‘I Just Had Sex’ with the caption ‘Still counts!’
Focus, Conrad. For Christ’s sake. Someone’s dead.
But are they connected to the gala murder?
Was it a coincidence that the Barbaranis’ famous wine had been compromised days before their most important event of the year?
‘What do you know, Greyson?’ growled a gravelly voice from the top of the stairs.
Max immediately knew she was about to come face to face with the head honcho. The big fish. The Pablo Escobar of Western Australia.
But as the squat form of Giovanni Barbarani bobbed down the stairs behind a slight, straight-haired woman in a lilac dress (presumably his wife, Vittoria), Max felt like she’d ordered a main meal and got the entrée instead. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but from the way Grey talked about him, she’d at least thought he’d be taller.
Giovanni spotted her instantly. ‘Who is that?’ He jabbed a finger at her.
Frankie scampered past him, looking thoroughly annoyed, and slouched beside Nella near the bottom of the staircase.
‘Security,’ Max said.
Tomaso rolled his eyes. Nella looked her up and down, then gave a wink of approval. Max suddenly felt self-conscious – she’d forgotten she was wearing Nella’s clothes. Had Giovanni noticed? Max guessed probably not, but Vittoria might.
Giovanni huffed and then rounded on Frankie. ‘Is this one of your psychotic vegan friends’ idea of a joke?’
Max expected Frankie to cower under her father’s glare. Max definitely would have. To her credit, though, the girl rolled her shoulders back and looked Giovanni square in his toadlike face.
‘Not that this redeems you in any way, but the sangue is actually vegan. Not that I’ll ever drink it. ETR doesn’t care about your wine.’
The knowledge that her short-term memory synapses hadn’t completely disintegrated over the past six months was reassuring: despite everything that had happened between her reading Kingsley’s articles and now, she was still able to recall the name of Frankie’s greenie group: Earth’s True Redeemers. It was small, but it made her feel almost like a cop again.
‘I’ve seen the footage!’ Giovanni roared. ‘You’ve started fires! I had to bail you out of jail!’
‘ Grey bailed me out of jail!’ Frankie yelled, tears beading.
‘Where do you think he got the money, Francesca?’
All of Max’s police instincts were reacting like this was a critical incident stand-off. She moved to get between Frankie and Giovanni, but a massive hand wrapped around her bicep.
‘Leave it.’ Grey’s breath against her ear made her skin prickle in a way it shouldn’t. He didn’t need to lean that close to her, did he? Did he?
She was delusional. Why had she taken her top off in front of him earlier? Why had she bridged that barrier? All those strategies she’d been working through with her psych – to help her think before she acted – were clearly working just splendidly.
He probably thought she was an absolute joke.
And what the hell would he say if he knew what she was thinking about when he gave her an order like that? Tonnes of cops – male cops – had spoken into Max’s ear before, during raids or just comparing observations. Never once had it felt like that.
Frankie’s wails broke Max out of her ridiculous thoughts. She was still screaming at Giovanni, he was still screaming back. Nella tried to intervene. Failed. Grey tried. Failed.
Frankie shouted that she was leaving. Giovanni blocked the door.
Tomaso was trying to look at Nella’s ankle, while she reprimanded him for not taking this seriously enough.
Luca’s eyes were glued to his phone, shouting out press quotes about Poppy Raven’s death to anyone who would listen.
Giovanni, between shouts at Frankie, told him to shut the fuck up.
Luca grabbed a wine bottle from the shelf behind him. Max wasn’t sure whether he planned on throwing it at his father or sculling it.
Giovanni was clearly having neither. He launched at the bottle and—
‘Enough!’ Max wasn’t sure what she’d expected Vittoria’s voice to sound like, but it wasn’t like this. Deep, eloquent, frightening. The matriarch of the Barbarani dynasty slanted her eyes like little bullets. From the abrupt silence that followed, it seemed they weren’t used to her making any claim to authority over Giovanni.
‘You want to act like galline ? Pecking each other to death? Bene . I will feed you scraps like galline then, for the rest of your lives.’
Max wasn’t sure if it was the threat of chicken food or the shock of the entire situation, but no one yelled after that. Not even Giovanni. They all turned to Grey.
With a flicker of surprise, Max realised this was the first time she’d seen Grey look genuinely worried. With it came the swooping sensation of an elevator dropping too fast.
‘I’m waiting on the coroner’s report,’ Grey said.
No one seemed to think it was shocking that Grey would have access to Poppy Raven’s autopsy results. Who the hell was this guy?
‘What’s the point?’ Luca said. ‘The entire country knows it was the Barbarani wine.’
‘It was not the wine,’ Tomaso said through gritted teeth.
Giovanni looked like he was a cork about to pop.
‘At the moment, yes, it looks like the wine,’ Grey said carefully. How could he keep his cool right now? Max was a peripheral character in this saga and she was a jittery mess. ‘Luca’s right – people are putting the three stories together. Girl drinks wine. Girl gets sick. Girl dies. No one, of course, has added in any of the events that may have happened between those three things. And that is what we need to do now. Fill in the gaps. But first I need to know conclusively what killed Poppy Raven.’
‘And what if – and I’m saying if , Dad.’ Nella raised an eyebrow at Giovanni. ‘What if it was the wine?’
‘Then we proceed from there,’ Grey said, ‘but I’m not jumping on the defensive until we know for sure. I might have to go into the city.’
‘We need you here, Greyson,’ Vittoria said. ‘The gala.’
‘I know.’ Grey’s face was pained. ‘I’ll make it back in time. But it’s a good thing I organised the extra security.’ He looked at Max.
She wasn’t sure if she was meant to respond or give everyone a cheery reassurance that she wasn’t going to let them all die. Remember , she reminded herself, they don’t know about the murder threat.
‘This is your last chance – I need to know now.’ Grey’s voice was gravelly and commanding. ‘And I need you to listen.’ Everyone’s eyes were on him. Even Luca looked up from his phone. Frankie settled herself near the closest barrel, no longer trying to dramatically escape. ‘Does anyone know anything they’re not telling me? About the wine? About Poppy Raven? About the gala?’
The silence screeched in Max’s ears like the tyres of a getaway car. The anticipation was so horrible that she felt an urge to say something.
Giovanni’s face was murderous, but Grey didn’t baulk. ‘I’m sorry, Gio,’ he said. ‘It’s my job to make sure.’
‘No one in this family would do such a thing. It pains me that this is even a question.’
Seems it’s only Giovanni who’s allowed to accuse his family of being traitors.
‘You need to be asking these questions about twenty minutes down Cove Road,’ Tomaso said. Urgh, it wasn’t just the tattoos and naked flesh thing, there was something seriously irritating about this guy. ‘We know who our true enemies are.’
‘There will be no mention of hostility between our family and the La Marcas,’ Vittoria said, her eyes no longer bullets but cold shards of blue-black ice. ‘They are invited as guests tomorrow night, and they will be treated as such. We do not want to give anyone ammunition to accuse us of any wrongdoing.’
‘Forrest’s not coming, is he?’ Nella asked quietly.
‘Wish he’d been the one to drown, not his brother,’ Frankie said, her eyebrows knotting together. Was Max witnessing a first moon-landing moment in history? The only thing the two Barbarani sisters had ever agreed on – a hatred of Forrest Valentine?
‘I saw Callum at a few ETR protests before he ...’ Frankie trailed off. Wisely, Max thought, judging by the look on Giovanni’s face at the mere thought of his daughter consorting with a La Marca contact.
‘The restraining order’s lapsed,’ Grey said. Max didn’t miss the quick glance he shot at Luca, who had gone eerily still at Nella’s question. Max looked away when she saw Grey notice her gaze, focusing on the first random thing she could find – a black backpack resting near the staircase.
‘There shouldn’t be any problems,’ Vittoria said.
Max surveyed the Barbaranis and Grey. Something was wrong, but she couldn’t put her finger on what.
She tried to remember the scene of them all arriving. Luca was already in the cellar when they got there. Giovanni and Vittoria had arrived within thirty seconds of each other.
No one had been carrying a backpack. Had they?
Someone was talking, but her head was filling up with acidic, salt water, drowning everything out with sloshing, white noise.
‘Whose backpack is that?’
Everyone looked at her like she’d just stabbed them all simultaneously. She rewired her thoughts to work out who she’d interrupted.
Shit. Giovanni.
‘Maxella, what are you ...’ Grey gave her the sort of look she herself reserved for paedophiles and rapists.
‘Whose backpack is that?’ she asked again. Her voice shook.
Focus. Focus.
They all just stared at her.
‘If no one can tell me who owns that backpack ...’ Her voice was calm, but her heart was thundering. Realisation seemed to be dawning on Grey, but everyone else was still looking at her like she had started stripping off her clothes. ‘You all need to get out. Now.’
‘Who in God’s hell are you?’ Giovanni rounded on her. ‘And where do you get off ordering me and my—’
‘Gio.’ Grey held up a hand. ‘You need to listen to her.’ He walked towards the bag.
‘NO!’ Max screamed, throwing her whole weight at Greyson. ‘Don’t touch it!’
‘What is it?’ Tomaso asked.
‘Max? It could just be a bag.’ He was looking at her like she was deranged. Maybe she was.
‘Do you want to take that chance, considering everything?’ she hissed.
He shook his head, conceding. ‘You heard her – out.’
‘Carefully!’ Max warned. ‘Don’t walk near it!’
Giovanni swore under his breath. Nella, Frankie and Tomaso scampered up the stairs, Nella’s heels clicking like a clock. Luca took longer, making sure his mother was in front of him. Giovanni waited below.
‘Gio.’ Grey’s voice was hoarse. ‘You need to follow them.’
‘Like hell.’ Before she or Grey could stop him, Giovanni had cut open the backpack’s zip like he was slitting the throat of a deer he’d just shot.
Max had only ever seen bombs in training videos. She’d disabled a fake one once as part of her colleague’s hen’s night. If it ‘exploded’ before they could disable it, they had to do a body shot off the stripper.
‘ Run! ’ She didn’t recognise her own voice.
Everything happened in flashes. Like an old film camera rolling through projections against a wall before it all went black again.
Giovanni looked at Grey.
The little red numbers flashed 0:09.
0:08
Giovanni: No time .
Grey: Your father’s passage. Gio. GO!
0:06
The barrel where Frankie had been standing.
Gio pressed his fingers on the side.
Barrel wasn’t a barrel.
Hole opened up.
Grey: Gio, JUMP!
0:05
Gio was no longer there.
0:04
Grey: Max! MAX!
0:03
She couldn’t move. She couldn’t make sense of it. Gio was there. Now he was gone.
Grey: Max! Jump Max!
0:02
Grey’s arms around her.
Grey’s arms no longer around her.
Falling.
Falling.
BOOM!