Getting Warmer

by Alan Carter

  Dieudonne’s recounting of the story of Tantalus reverberated. Colin Graham: betraying secrets and sacrificing colleagues, all for earthly gain. Was he now in a subterranean Hades embarking upon his eternity of torment? Cato doubted it: the man was just charcoal remains waiting to be bagged and tagged. But it wasn’t just about Colin Graham. It seemed to Cato that the rage and blackness he encountered every day in his job was usually some variation on the twisted tale of Tantalus: greed, betrayal, human sacrifice, infanticide. He thought of Karina Ford’s unborn grandchild, bludgeoned to death even before seeing the light of day, and all over a pathetic drug debt.

  This was a Tuesday afternoon in Fremantle, Australia, yet sometimes it felt like chaos was just a wrong look, a brain snap away. One day: a beautiful, sun-kissed and laid-back paradise – God’s own. The next: a vicious, amoral, ‘nothing personal’ vacuum. The Big Empty. A state that had built itself around a one-word motto, ‘Floreat’, prosper – and never looked back. It was a place Dieudonne now called home. For all the contrast in wealth and privilege between the two societies there were commonalities: two resource-rich nations, a sense of entitlement for those who plundered those resources, and sometimes a savage lack of empathy for those who wished only to live their lives in peace and safety.

  Hutchens popped his head around the door. ‘Thought you might like to know. Shellie’s out on bail, magistrates hearing adjourned for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘Bryn Irskine?’

  ‘Still looking.’ Hutchens disappeared again.

  Paperwork. The prison bikies’ next court appearance was due within two weeks. The Vincent Tran tip-off had been offered as a counter-balance to the Wellard bashing case to get the two Casuarina stompers out of the frame for murder. Clearly the Apaches wanted a game-changer from Cato before then. He didn’t have a clue where to start. Maybe lunch first.

  By midafternoon Lara was going stir-crazy and her eyes kept returning to that note on the fridge door. CHOC!!! She decided to go and get some but it had to be seen as part of an orderly plan and not a panic response to a disgusting base impulse. She drew up a full list of a week’s worth of groceries with meals planned out for the next seven days. Balanced nutritional meals with plenty of fresh vegetables, crunchy salads, fruit. And chocolate.

  She drove over to the Woolstores, parked and grabbed a trolley. Lara had caught a glimpse of herself in the rear-view mirror and was aware that her face still carried bruises and abrasions from her recent adventures. Fellow shoppers looked at her and looked quickly away. Battered spouses must get this every day, she realised. Maybe she had more in common with the Shellie Petkovics of this world than she was game to admit: blind faith in a violent, controlling and manipulative man. Result – a world of hurt. Maybe she should have come down in her police uniform and they could have shaken her hand and given her medals instead of those pitying glances.

  Chocolate. Lara knew where it was but she went in the opposite direction. Queen of Denial. She packed her trolley with nature’s bounty: crunchy salad; ripe, shiny, juicy fruit; wholemeal bread. Fresh fish packed to the gills with omega-3. Fruit juice, wholemeal pasta, chicken, herbal teabags, bircher muesli.

  CHOC!!! One aisle to go.

  She almost deliberately went past and then, as if struck by a second thought, or a reminder that she’d promised to buy something for a friend, she edged towards the chocolate, tense and wary, as if approaching somebody armed with a knife. A spray of arterial blood across a white wall. Above her, piped muzak, instantly forgettable. Pity her bloody daydreams weren’t the same.

  CHOC!!! Row upon row of the stuff: plain, dark, mildly dark, fruity, nutty, fruity and nutty, peppermint, caramel, she didn’t know where to start. She picked one block, looked at it, put it back. Another. A hand gripped her below the knee. Fagin crawling along the floor, blood gushing from his neck. She looked again: it was a toddler thinking Lara was his mum and scared now because he was wrong.

  ‘You okay there, sweetie?’

  The mum gathered her toddler up in her arms and repeated the question, but to Lara this time. Lara stood holding onto her trolley, heart pounding, reaching for breath.

  39

  Cato had returned from lunch with a half-filled cryptic and a fully filched West. The headline featured the launch of the Premier’s Safer Streets campaign: a slogan, Reclaim Our Streets – the vigilantes will like that one, thought Cato; a photo of a parent of a one-punch killing; an education program including TV ads; a promise of stricter penalties; and a new hard line from the police. Cato wondered how much harder they could get when they already had batons, tasers and dogs. Shoot on sight? What it really needed was a change in the way we all think and act. Easy. Got ten generations to spare?

  He followed up on the DNA and other samples taken from Stephen Mazza to see if there had been any progress. The lab was snowed under with a backlog of samples from all the volume crime that had been added to their workload. The powers-that-be had reasoned, correctly, that your average punter tended to experience crime usually as a victim of the lower level but far more pervasive volume offences: burglaries in the suburbs, car thefts, vandalism, assaults. It was Safer Streets writ large: lift your game and your clear-up rate on the things that matter to them and you have happier taxpayers and voters. As a result DNA and other forensic testing, previously the reserve of murders in Mosman Park, was now also applied to burglaries in Bassendean. The predictably massive increase in workload was never going to be adequately matched by the more moderate increase in resources allocation.

  ‘Friday week do you?’ mumbled a flat voice at the other end of the phone.

  Kenny and Danny were due in court on the Tuesday after that; it was cutting it fine if anything bigger and more urgent happened in the meantime and shunted it down the list. ‘No chance of a fast track?’ said Cato.

  ‘That is the fast track. Everybody else has to wait until at least April. What’s the emergency?’

  Cato explained about the Wellard case and the upcoming court appearance of the bikies but left out the personal bit about the nail-gun tap on the knee.

  ‘Let’s get this straight. You want me to drop everything to run some tests that may or may not help clear some scungy bikies who are up for killing a pervert rapist murderer in Casuarina? That right?’

  Cato didn’t get the chance to confirm that was the nature of his request. The phone connection hummed discouragingly.

  His mobile beeped. It was a text from Jane.

  ok 4 jake this wknd?

  It was lucky that the previous weekend’s manhunt and Cato’s Myaree abduction hadn’t interfered with their shared custody arrangements. So, all things being equal, it should be fine to have his son over.

  sure

  he texted back. Almost immediately another reply from his ex-wife’s nimble fingers:

  will drop him friday @ 6 and back sunday 9am.

  Domestics sorted, Cato’s mind returned to bikies and nail guns.

  ‘You busy?’ It was DI Hutchens standing in his office doorway.

  Only on a matter of urgent and knee-shattering importance.

  ‘It can wait,’ said Cato. He sauntered into his boss’s domain. DS Meldrum occupied one guest seat, Farmer John another. Cato took the only one left.

  Hutchens nodded at Meldrum to proceed. There was a sheen of sweat on the well-fed face and dark patches around the armpits; Meldrum must have been outside doing some work. ‘The doorknock has thrown up something interesting.’

  ‘I’m all ears,’ said Cato. Farmer John yawned: he appeared to already know what this was about.

  ‘Mr David Rose. Lives alone in one of the Biscuit Factory units. He was fishing from the rocks at the end of the mole up to about an hour before the emergency services callout. He recalls the black ute showing up and doing a couple of burnouts just as he was packing up his gear.’

  ‘Yep,’ said Cato.

  ‘He also remembered there was someone else at the end of the mole about the same time he was th
ere. A woman. And she wasn’t fishing.’

  Cato nodded. ‘Sounds suspicious. Go on.’

  ‘His description of her, particularly of the cuts and bruises on her face, matches our own DSC Lara Sumich.’

  ‘I thought she was acting funny this morning. That explains it.’

  All eyes turned to Farmer John.

  ‘Explains what?’ said Hutchens.

  ‘The off-the-planet, shell-shocked look. Poor kid must have seen the whole thing.’

  Poor kid? It wasn’t the image Cato had come to associate with Lara Sumich. ‘Just “seen” the whole thing, or been part of it?’ he said.

  ‘You serious?’ DI Hutchens clearly didn’t fancy the sound of that. The paperwork would be the end of him.

  ‘Why not? He abducted and tried to murder her so she had a strong motive. She was there when it happened. If we can establish any connecting physical evidence then we’re in business.’

  ‘We’re in trouble, more like. Fuck’s sake Cato, I know you two don’t get along but this is a bit much.’

  Farmer John’s head lifted at this new bit of intra-office gossip but he didn’t pursue it; like any good intelligence man he’d be storing it away for a rainy day. Hutchens tapped a pencil furiously against the edge of his desk.

  Cato decided to turn the thumbscrew. ‘Colin Graham would have had a gun. Has anybody wondered why it was never found? Maybe Lara took it off him; maybe we should send some divers into the harbour for a look. If I was contemplating suicide I’d be keeping my gun. Eating your Glock has to be better than self-immolation. And if you did an inventory of Lara’s locker and kit supply you might find she’s short one set of handcuffs. Who knows? The least we should be doing is pursuing this as a line of inquiry.’

  Farmer John appraised Cato. ‘We should probably ask Ms Sumich to explain herself,’ he conceded.

  ‘Shit,’ sighed Hutchens, ‘you think there’s a light at the end of the tunnel and it turns out to be a fucking express train.’

  Lara wasn’t sure how she got home from her panic attack in the supermarket. She dimly recalled that at some point a cherubic ranga-curled youth in a polo shirt gave her a glass of water while several people looked at her as if she was on drugs. The same youth, his name badge said Liam, had helped process her shopping through the checkout. Liam had even gone and chosen some chocolate for her. The shopping was still in bags on the kitchen counter, waiting to be put away. It had been there for a couple of hours. Lara sat on the couch watching daytime TV, the bar of chocolate in her hands: Mildly Dark with Almonds. A mug of sweet milky instant coffee cooled at her feet. She had visions of herself in a few weeks: a big, greasy blob of lard. On TV it was Deal or No Deal: all those decisions and Lara couldn’t even choose a bar of chocolate for herself. For all that, she was about to pick the blue-haired nanna with briefcase 21 when her door buzzer went. She swore and stumbled over to the video monitor screen above the entry button.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Lara?’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘You and I need to talk.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘What you were doing down on Capo D’Orlando Drive last night.’

  Lara closed her eyes and rested her forehead against the cool wall. She pressed the button to let him in.

  ‘We have a problem.’ UC John planted himself at her kitchen table.

  ‘Who’s “we” this time?’

  ‘The boss, Meldrum, Kwong.’ A pause. ‘You and me.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘We know you were there. That makes you at least a witness, maybe even a suspect. Somebody saw you on the scene during the timeframe. There’s also a CCTV camera mounted on a light pole near the trawlers and the toilet block. We haven’t checked it yet but who knows what we might find. There’s also the matter of the handcuffs to be investigated, plus the records of your mobile phone communications with Graham.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I know you didn’t kill him.’

  ‘Of course you do. You already knew I was there. You were meant to be my “safety net”.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So why didn’t you respond to my emergency text and why haven’t you told Hutchens what really went on?’

  No answer.

  Lara glanced over at her unfinished slab of Mildly Dark. ‘You tipped them off.’

  ‘Tipped who off, Lara? You’re not making any sense.’

  ‘Oh fuck off, I don’t need your games, I had enough of that shit with Colin.’

  ‘Look Lara, I know you’ve been under a lot of stress lately and that you’re about to undertake trauma counselling.’

  ‘Who says?’

  John leaned forward over Lara’s kitchen table and patted her hand. ‘I’m here to help. There’s a few bits and pieces to tidy up but once done we can file Colin Graham away and all get on with our lives.’

  ‘That easy, huh?’ she said dully. ‘What about me? What if I decide to come clean? Does that put a spanner in your works?’

  ‘Feeling guilty about him? Don’t. He was going to hand you over to the Apaches as a plaything before they killed you. If I hadn’t convinced them otherwise, you’d be wishing you were dead by now.’

  ‘You didn’t just turn them though, did you? You set the whole thing up, even the location, nice and quiet at that time of night, and you got word to him that it would be just me.’ She shook her head, disgust and admiration in equal parts. ‘And he believed you.’

  ‘He believed his mates. They told him I was also in their pocket. I’m almost hurt that he bought it. Here’s me thinking I came across as squeaky clean.’

  ‘That’s why he was so confident,’ said Lara. ‘And I was the bait. Ends and means, huh?’

  John stared at the tabletop, measuring out his words. ‘Santo Rosetti was a mate of mine. He was a good officer. He lived every day with the fear and danger of his cover being blown: every day with scumbags for companions until you begin to forget whether you’re one of them or not.’

  Lara wondered about that daily destruction of your sense of self and how long she’d last under that kind of pressure. She remembered the looks in the supermarket, the assumptions that the bruises on her face were there because she was one of life’s losers. The kind of looks and judgements she too had foisted on Santo and on Cato’s mispers mum.

  ‘You let them kill him. Aren’t we meant to be better than that?’

  ‘It was in all our interests.’ John shrugged. ‘Santo Rosetti was betrayed by a colleague, somebody he needed to be able to trust. In our game you show no mercy. Graham got what was coming. The alternative was having him laugh at us all the way through the courts and ending up with a reduced sentence and a cushy job in the library at Karnet. Believe me Lara, it was for the best, and now we just have to tidy this up.’

  ‘What if I don’t play ball?’

  ‘We could hang you out to dry.’

  ‘I doubt it. You want this to be as neat as a pin. I’ve been through all sorts of shit these past few weeks. The newspapers love me. I’m a hero.’ Lara broke off a square of chocolate. ‘So, what’s in it for me?’

  ‘What do you want?’ said John.

  She gave it some thought, told him, and then they worked out what to do next.

  The sun floated on the horizon for a few seconds before melting from view. From his vantage point on the parapet of the Round House, Cato turned his back on the ocean and looked east up High Street and the rooftops of the West End bathed in the sunset glow. Cato had decided he needed to right a wrong; he felt guilty about being such a hard-arse. This had been a violent and blood-soaked few weeks and Lara Sumich had been at the centre of much of it. Right now she didn’t need the kind of scrutiny he’d just unleashed upon her. He was on his way to tip her off when he’d seen Lara’s visitor enter the apartment building. He’d bided his time with a stroll up to the historic lookout. Now, twenty-five minutes later, her visitor was leaving. So what was it that Lara Sumich
had been cooking up with Farmer John?

  40

  Wednesday, February 17th. Morning.

  ‘We need you to clarify what you were doing there, Detective Sumich.’

  DI Hutchens didn’t look comfortable in the role of Inquisitor today. That was good, thought Lara, he’d be keen to get it over with, keen for an exit strategy. Hutchens was doing the talking, Meldrum the transcribing, and John was there in case he was needed. No tapes yet and no formal caution. Also no Cato: he’d been sent off to get some coffees and to get on with other duties. He hadn’t kicked up a fuss like she would have: he’d just smiled at Hutchens and John and given Lara a wink on the way past. That spelled danger to her.

  ‘During the day on Monday, I received a text message from Colin Graham seeking a meeting with me at Capo D’Orlando Drive at 9p.m. that night.’

  ‘Why didn’t you inform us?’

  ‘I believed I had the trust of DS Graham and that I had the best chance of bringing him in if I was able to go alone to the rendezvous and persuade him.’

  ‘Are you serious? This was after he abducted you, assaulted you, and left you to be killed by Dieudonne?’

  ‘Yes sir, I can see now that it was a poor judgement call.’

  ‘Fucking right.’ Hutchens lifted a warning finger to the scribbling Meldrum. ‘Don’t write that, dickhead.’

  ‘What made you think you could persuade him this time?’ said John.

  ‘It was my belief that Graham himself was not capable of seriously harming me. He had Dieudonne to do that kind of thing. He previously had numerous opportunities to kill me but never did it. As such I believed I was relatively safe.’ Meldrum was struggling to keep up, tongue poking through. ‘I also believed that during the course of our investigative work together we had bonded to some extent. I also believed that he wanted to surrender, as his options by then were severely limited.’