Prime Cut

by Alan Carter

  Cato laid it all out: how sense was finally made of Guan Yu’s version of events, the fracas at the Stevenson barbecue. Hutchens ummed and sighed and asked for clarifications along the way, particularly the details of the dawn raid and the shooting of Steve Dempster. Cato then summed up the interview with Keith Stevenson and his son. He realised he was running out of steam as he explained the difference between what he believed to be the truth and the likely court outcome based on the available evidence. Then he waited for Hutchens’ response. He could almost see his boss shaking his head in despair at the other end of the phone.

  ‘Manslaughter at best, although I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets off with self-defence. Fuck’s sake, you had the Chinaman offering to be locked up for murder and you turned him down. Trust you to turn a simple open-and-shut confession into a ... a fucking dog’s breakfast.’

  ‘The truth isn’t always so cut and dried, sir.’

  ‘Tell that to the bean counters in Perth. That raid wasn’t sanctioned, an officer was seriously wounded. I could finish you for that.’

  There was a pause for it to sink in. Cato didn’t bite. Hutchens was right, his fate was out of his hands. Just the way he liked it.

  Hutchens grunted. ‘So where’s Stevenson now?’

  ‘Ravy lockup, heading to Albany tomorrow.’

  ‘Paperwork?’

  ‘Same. Also you’ll need to phone through to Bernie Tilbrook to authorise the release of Guan Yu.’

  ‘Yeah? Sure there’s nothing we can do him for? Assault, wasting police time, hindering the inquiry, pain-in-the-arse, something like that?’

  ‘Your call, sir.’ He tried changing the subject. ‘So how did it go?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The funeral, Jim Buckley.’

  ‘He’s gone. But something did come up.’ Hutchens explained about Stuart Miller’s wife and the text message from her husband’s phone. How it wasn’t from the hubby as he was out cold in the Burns Unit.

  Cato beat him to it. ‘Billy Mather?’

  ‘Yes, or Davey Arthurs as she calls him. Any developments on that?’

  Cato outlined how far he’d got. Not far really as he’d been a bit busy. But the pub security camera footage and now the text message all pointed towards Billy Mather as a person of definite interest for Jim Buckley’s murder.

  Cato voiced the obvious. ‘So where does that leave Justin Woodward?’

  Not to mention Lara Sumich, instrumental in building the case against him. Buckley, blackmail, drugs, it was all beginning to look like fabricated bullshit. It was beginning to look all too familiar.

  Mick Hutchens muttered one from his collection of fucks into the phone. Prick, thought Cato, he’d dug himself into a gaping hole by pinning it all on Justin.

  ‘Leave that to me,’ said Hutchens. ‘Forensically, Woodward’s still in the frame. But we need to find Mather.’

  Cato had in his mind’s eye the image of Lara emerging from Jim Buckley’s motel room and from the shadows of the town hall late one night. The smouldering kiss, an age-old ruse to distract him from her real purpose, tampering with and tainting evidence. Buckley’s DNA from his motel room possibly finding its way onto Woodward’s clothing, drugs appearing in the coffee van, none-toosubtle pressure applied to a star witness. He knew all the tricks, he’d been there and done that. What were her words when she came that morning? Well and truly fucked. Cato wasn’t the only one. Justin Woodward had been trussed up like a Christmas turkey.

  Cato suggested a fine toothcomb over the forensic evidence; it probably wasn’t all it seemed to be.

  ‘Meaning?’ Hutchens’ voice had taken on a cold, sharp edge.

  ‘Meaning one or more of your officers has possibly tampered with it.’

  ‘Do you know what you’re suggesting?’ hissed Hutchens.

  Cato was running out of patience. His time on this job was coming to an end; he had little or nothing to lose. ‘Yes. And so do you. Don’t come over all hurt and surprised. You’ve suspected her for a while now, haven’t you?’

  The silence at the other end of the line spoke volumes.

  Hutchens inhaled. ‘Keep it to yourself. I’ll square things away at this end.’

  ‘I’m not sure I like the sound of that.’

  ‘No more games, Cato, I’ll square it. Properly. Just find Mather. Please.’

  The line went dead. The last time Cato heard Mick Hutchens say ‘please’ was when he’d agreed not to dob in his old boss to the internal review. The one that saw Cato cast out to Stock Squad Siberia. He wasn’t sure if that was a good omen or bad. Cato checked the digital alarm clock on the bedside table and yawned. Another hour’s kip wouldn’t harm anyone, if he could get back to sleep. Once again his mind was buzzing and obsessing. He reached for the newspaper. A crossword could be as good as a sleeping pill sometimes. The paper had slipped off with the synthetic doona cover and was lying open on the floor. A large photo caught his eye.

  The paper was dated Thursday, October 9th, the day after they’d arrived in Hopetoun. The day before Jim Buckley met his death. The photofit was on page four, part of a story about a cold-case review of a 1981 murder in Adelaide. This man had apparently electrocuted and bludgeoned his wife and kids, then put them in a car and left them in some bushland; his name was Derek Chapman. The photofit picture of how the suspect might look today was, to his eye, a fleshy, bald, jug-eared and big-nosed approximation of Billy Mather. Jim Buckley couldn’t have failed to see the story and the picture. Had the Pommie ex-cop, his brother-in-law, tipped him off about it? Is that why Buckley left the pub midway through the evening? Did he come back here to double-check the paper? Then he returned to talk to the man to confirm his suspicions. Obviously he didn’t ask him outright. Hey mate, are you that murderer on the run? The CCTV disks would have shown significantly more commotion if he had. So why didn’t he act on his suspicions instead of just quietly phoning his brother-in-law? Or did he want Miller to be in on the take? By all accounts Miller was an obsessive man who hadn’t been able to let go of a thirty-odd year old case; Cato could identify with that. He recalled now the text message on Jim’s phone midway through the morning he died.

  how’s it going? stu

  Stuart Miller wanting to know the upshot of the previous night’s call. So what was it in the conversation that convinced Jim Buckley he had the right man?

  Nearly ten to four. Where do you start to look for a possible killer on the loose, late on a Friday afternoon? He grabbed his briefcase and took out Stuart Miller’s notebook hoping for inspiration. All he found were puzzles and cryptic notes.

  Who is CK!!!

  Cato Kwong? Well he was the centre of the known universe after all.

  Father, shell-shock, suicide?

  Vicki Munro – survivor, DA said he didn’t have childhood

  DA, mum and brother, still alive? How much did they know?

  There were dates, telephone numbers, names but all from a long time ago on the other side of the world. They weren’t going to help him find Billy Mather, here and now. One name he recognised from the news article: DSC Tim Delaney, South Australia Homicide, the cold-case cop. Cato flipped open his mobile and keyed the number on Miller’s list.

  ‘CK?’

  ‘That’s what it says.’

  Cato had Tim Delaney’s full attention. No, he hadn’t been aware of developments in the case as regards Stuart Miller, he was shocked at what had happened to him and intrigued by the possible link to the murder of Jim Buckley. Tragedies aside, he was also a bit pissed off that Miller had held so much back from him and let Cato know he was hoping for a lot more glasnost from here on in. Delaney was in a taxi leaving Adelaide airport when Cato called. The WA trip had been fruitless and he had been called back home empty-handed to regroup. Now, with rain thundering against Cato’s motel window and the sound of Adelaide traffic honking in the background at Delaney’s end, they were trying to decipher Miller’s notes.

  ‘Haven’t a clue who CK is. Next?
’

  ‘Father, shell-shock, suicide, question mark.’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Vicki Munro – survivor, DA said he didn’t have a childhood.’

  ‘She’s a survivor of one of Chapman’s attacks. Lived in Bunbury until she topped herself a couple of years later. Miller must have picked something up from the brother Brian. I’ll follow it up. Next?’

  The blizzard of names was confusing Cato. The man he knew as Billy Mather was known as Chapman to some and Arthurs to others. Cato scratched notes to keep track. Next clue from the Miller chronicles.

  ‘Mother, brother, still alive, question mark, how much did they know?’

  Delaney grunted. ‘We did an immigration check. He’d got in to Australia using his little brother’s passport. As to whether it was with his permission or not, we don’t know. Stuart put us in touch with his Pommie police mates. I’ll get them to follow up some of these things and get back to you. As soon as you find this Mather bloke give us a bell, yeah?’

  Cato promised he would and they rang off. He looked at the notebook again. CK. Calvin Klein? A missing FU? A girlfriend? A boyfriend? Whatever it all meant these were clues to the man’s past and maybe his state of mind, not to his present whereabouts. He needed to start using up some good old-fashioned shoe leather.

  36

  Friday, October 17th. Late afternoon.

  Billy Mather’s Ravy motel room had been locked up and sealed off. Cato collected the key from reception and let himself in. It looked like any other country motel room except maybe more jaded and faded. It was hardly lived in; Mather hadn’t stuck around. A plastic bag of toiletries and some replacement clothes had been supplied by Ravensthorpe Police. Everything of Mather’s had been destroyed in the caravan fire. The bag and clothes lay seemingly untouched on the spare bed. He hadn’t bothered to take them with him when he did his runner. Why? He didn’t need them. Why? Maybe he already had his own stash? Cato had a flashback to the fire scene: the holdall in the back of the jeep. If he was the man he was shaping up to be, a cold-blooded killer who had struck several times and evaded capture for thirty-odd years, then a bit of forward planning was obviously not beyond him.

  That got Cato thinking about the theory of the booby-trapped caravan. An open gas tap, matches on the doorjamb, neat and simple. But why not just disappear quietly like he had done so many times before? Why draw attention to yourself with such a melodramatic flourish? That begged a further question: in order to set a trap he had to have prior knowledge of who was coming and when. Maybe Mather had recognised Miller in town and put two and two together. Maybe he set the booby trap because he knew with the cold-case team and Miller closing in, it was time to do his disappearing act again. And hadn’t his previous disappearing acts been signed off with an act of spectacular violence? Maybe if you create a big enough sideshow people get distracted from the main game. It buys time. Cato shuddered at the memory from the newspaper story: the man had killed his wife and kids and left them to rot in the bush. Cato could speculate until the cows came home but it wasn’t going to help him find Billy Mather.

  He checked the cupboards and drawers. Nothing. The bathroom was bare, the towels unused. He checked the phone for messages and previous numbers called. Zilch. The man really seemed to have vanished without a trace. Outside in the courtyard Cato checked for any security cameras. There was one high on a pole by the gravel entrance from the main road. In the motel reception area there was another camera high in the corner behind the counter. He arranged with the bored-looking young woman in charge to view the footage later. Then he went to check on the welfare of Keith Stevenson.

  Stevenson was polishing off an evening meal of sausage roll and chips brought to him from the cafe down the road from the lockup. Cato gestured at the almost empty plate.

  ‘Don’t let me interrupt you.’

  Stevenson didn’t. With a malevolent stare he forked up the last three chips and shoved them into his mouth. He clattered the cutlery down onto the plate and shoved it away from him.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I need your help.’

  ‘Fuck off, I’m busy.’

  Cato took the newspaper clipping out of his pocket and spread it on the table between them. ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘No. Didn’t you hear me?’

  ‘Look at it.’

  ‘Why the fuck should I?’

  ‘Because I want him more than I want you.’

  Keith Stevenson looked at the photofit and shrugged. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘He’s Derek Chapman, Billy Mather, David Arthurs. Take your pick.’

  Cato told Stevenson what the man in the photo had done to his wife and kids in Adelaide, and a few years before that to another wife and kid in the UK, and what he was suspected of doing to Jim Buckley.

  Stevenson listened impassively and shrugged again. ‘Croweaters, Poms, and cops, who cares?’

  Cato held his temper. ‘Not you obviously, but all you do need to care about is the fact that I want him badly enough to help you with your problem.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘I’m prepared to speak on your behalf in court, help mitigate whatever is coming your way.’

  ‘Big deal. The kind of lawyers I can afford, I’m expecting to walk anyway.’

  It was worth a try. ‘Sorry to waste your precious time, Mr Stevenson.’

  ‘Yeah, no worries.’ But still he couldn’t contain his curiosity. ‘How am I supposed to help anyway?’

  Cato couldn’t tell if this was a wind-up. ‘You’re connected, old contacts from your glory days, new ones now that you’re a pillar of the community. I want him found. Quickly.’

  Stevenson sat for a while staring at the smudge of tomato sauce on his dinner plate.

  ‘Okay, get me a phone.’

  Cato frowned, not sure he’d heard right. ‘Why?’

  ‘So I can make a phone call, dickhead.’

  ‘I mean why are you helping if I’m not offering anything?’

  Stevenson gave him a thin smile. ‘Because I can, because I’m not necessarily what you think I am and because then you’ll owe me. Now get me the phone.’

  ‘The mother’s dead but little brother is still kicking.’

  Tim Delaney had heard from Northumbria Police. They’d gone back and asked the questions that should have been asked thirtyfive years ago. They’d always known whodunnit but they’d never caught him and, without a trial, had never felt the need to pursue ‘whyhedunnit’. Delaney’s call came through as Cato was in transit from Ravy to Hopey. He had left Keith Stevenson to his devices and headed back to the prospect of a lonely dinner and an early night. The crappy weather had settled in.

  Apparently, according to the little brother Andy, young Davey Arthurs had taken his father’s suicide very hard. The old man had been a basket case since he came back from the war. He had a crater in the side of his head the size of a fist, it was a wonder he was alive at all. They’d found an easy job for him in the shipyards but he hadn’t even been able to do that properly. The homecoming hero thing didn’t last very long. Workmates started taking the piss, playing practical jokes. Eventually he’d quit and topped himself not long after. Davey started acting up and became a handful, fighting, truanting, stealing, smashing stuff up. They were all scared of him. His mother, unable to cope, had him committed to the local mental hospital. The standard treatment in those days was electroconvulsive therapy: shock treatment.

  ‘Only in those days they didn’t use anaesthetic or muscle relaxants. Not nice. Apparently one time he jerked so much it broke his arm.’ Delaney had clearly done his homework. ‘Plenty of clues in there about the MO then,’ he observed redundantly.

  Cato had to concur, it wasn’t rocket science: electrocution and ECT, bludgeoning and the father’s fist-sized brain injury, mothers and children as the target group – it was mum who signed him up for it and little brother who got away scot-free.

  Delaney was on a roll. ‘It also ties in with Vick
i Munro’s comments about Davey saying he never had a childhood. ECT really fucks with the memory.’

  ‘So the family never thought to mention all this at the time?’

  ‘Nobody asked them, according to little brother. Northumbria Police reckon he’s being a bit cute. He probably did know about the passport and big brother’s propensity for violence but wasn’t about to give the cops a free kick. I can see his point, he’s not going to do their jobs for them.’

  ‘Fucking hell.’ Cato couldn’t think of anything cleverer to say.

  ‘Nicely put,’ said Delaney.

  ‘What about CK? Anyone know who she or he was?’

  ‘No, maybe when you find him you can ask him.’

  Cato squinted absent-mindedly at a spot on the wall. ‘Will do.’

  He rang off. So they knew whodunit, maybe even why. All he needed to do now was find the bastard. As was so often the case, Davey Arthurs career as a psycho was rooted in a disturbed childhood, a sprinkling of unlucky genes, and a propensity for mayhem. Cato had a mental image of Jai Stevenson sucking his Chup-a-Chup.

  37

  Sunday, October 19th. Midmorning.

  His bags were packed; Cato Kwong was ready to go. The Sea Rescue hut was locked until either Tess Maguire or Greg Fisher returned to work in the hopefully not-too-distant future. Hopetoun was once again temporarily without a police presence but Sergeant Paul Abbott, Mitch Biddulph and the ever-helpful Bernie Tilbrook were just a phone call and thirty minutes’ fast drive away in Ravensthorpe should any emergency crop up.

  Cato had paid an early morning call on Tess to say goodbye. She and Melissa were at the kitchen table going through old photographs, laughing, reminiscing, putting some in an album, binning others. He felt unexpectedly envious, and as if he was interrupting something. Tess had protested otherwise but she hadn’t argued too strongly when he made his excuses and left. They’d hugged at the doorway, Melissa peering inquisitively down the hall.

  Tess looked up into his eyes, expression completely open. ‘Have you made any big decisions lately?’