by Alan Carter
‘She was having an affair.’ A sly smirk. ‘And they had the nerve to look down on us.’
‘How do you know?’ Cato focused on the boy. ‘Zac?’
No response.
‘Emily told you?’
Zac snorted, looked away.
Cato saw something in the boy’s eyes he hadn’t seen before. Vulnerability. Hurt. Was this what was behind his Facebook vitriol? Cato took a photo out of his folder. ‘Was it this guy?’
The boy’s face flushed. ‘How did you know?’
‘More important, how do you know? Where have you seen his photo before?’
‘On Em’s phone. She showed me. The slut was seeing the dirty old bastard.’
Emily and Yu Guangming? ‘Are you sure?
‘Yes. She was boasting about it.’ Zac screwed up his face in a petulant imitation of Emily. ‘Made her feel like a woman, she reckons. He was so cool and mature and sophisticated. Tosspot.’
‘And her mother?’
‘What about her?’
‘Did she know?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. Why?’
Cato didn’t offer an answer. ‘So Emily was seeing this bloke. What about it?’
‘She said he was coming round later that night. She was going to sneak him into the house. She’d got a text from him, making the arrangement.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us any of this before?’ said Deb.
‘Who’s going to believe a story like that? Oh yeah I was in the murder house that night but it wasn’t me, some mystery Chinese bloke came round later and did it. Honest.’
‘And you probably didn’t want the world to know she’d dumped you for somebody else,’ said Deb Hassan. ‘That right, Zac?’
His eyes welled up. ‘Fuck you.’
Deb drove and Cato took a call from Driscoll.
‘You’ve got company, the white Pajero.’
Cato had picked it up as they were leaving Trollsville. He recognised Driscoll’s black Honda but the white 4WD travelling in the same convoy from such a deserted place was a bit obvious. Cato said as much.
‘I don’t think subtlety is the point,’ said Driscoll.
‘Should I be worried?’
‘Not yet. I’ll keep an eye on him.’
‘Just the one? Who?’
Driscoll told him.
No surprise to Cato that it was Skin Moisturiser. ‘What about the others?’
‘Out buying garrottes, probably.’
‘Cheers.’ Cato told Deb Hassan where he wanted to go next.
‘Bandyup?’
‘May as well make a day of it,’ said Cato.
Tricia Mundine was pink-eyed and slightly sedated as Cato took the seat opposite her. Deb Hassan had elected to wait in the car. On the drive up to the Swan Valley she got the strong impression that this was more of a social work visit. Deb didn’t see the need to get involved.
‘Not after what her little bastard did to the boss. No way.’
Cato sympathised. He was tempted to take the same stance. But something compelled him to hear Tricia out. Maybe it was just a rounding off, a balancing of the books. The karmic accountant in him.
‘Were you there when they shot him?’ Her voice was slurred, sleepy. They’d definitely given her something for the pain.
‘No,’ said Cato.
‘Why did they have to do that?’
‘Tricia, he was a killer. A violent man. He’s left my boss in a coma. Killed a young cop down in Augusta. The bloke had a family, a little toddler.’
‘Shame,’ said Tricia.
‘What do you want from me, what was so urgent?’
‘My boy’s dead. I don’t suppose it’s urgent though.’ She looked around the interview room. The dull scratched walls painted and repainted. The smells: chemicals, cigarettes, misery. ‘This is my ninth time in here. Home from home now.’
‘It would be,’ conceded Cato. He felt like telling her to do something about it, stop feeling sorry for herself, stop failing, stop breeding new generations of psychos and fuck-ups. Just die, he wanted to say. But he didn’t.
She sniffed, a horrible mucousy rattle of institutional germs. ‘I knew what Paulie was doing to him, you know.’
‘Yeah?’ Cato wasn’t surprised. ‘And you let it happen.’
‘Paulie took him on holiday to the caravan in Augusta. I was back in here by then. Non-payment of fines.’
‘And?’
‘Next time they visited, I knew.’ A tear rolled down her cheek. ‘Davey just looked at me. He was eight or something. That look of his. Not angry or sad or anything. Just right through me, like I wasn’t there.’
Cato already knew the answer to the next question. ‘And you dropped Paulie once you knew?’
Tricia shook her head. ‘I couldn’t, could I? I didn’t have anybody else to look after Davey. They’d have taken him off me.’
Cato cleared his throat, checked the time on his mobile.
‘The next time, I thought he’d be better off in that hostel. Ward of the state, they’d take care of him there wouldn’t they? Keep him away from the likes of Paulie.’
Wrong again, thought Cato.
‘We do terrible things to our babies don’t we? You don’t even mean to, it just happens. We make monsters of them. And then they grow up and do terrible things to their babies, or other people.’ Tears rolled freely down her face now. ‘If your boss ever wakes up, tell him I’m sorry. Will you?’
‘Sure,’ said Cato. He stood up and they shook hands, a strange and awkward gesture under the circumstances. But a hug wouldn’t have been right either. ‘Take care.’
The white Pajero trailed them back from the Swan Valley. And behind the Pajero was Driscoll’s Honda. Cato studied them in the wing mirror. Rain had blown in while Cato was inside the prison. Now it bounced off the windscreen and Deb Hassan had the wipers on full bore.
‘Where to now?’ she enquired. ‘Geraldton?’
‘The office.’
‘Did she say sorry?’
‘Yep.’
‘That’s all right, then.’
Cato wasn’t in the mood for Deb’s sarcasm right now. He switched on the radio. Election news. He fiddled with the tuner button until he found the golden oldies channel. The Easybeats, ‘Sorry’. Cato turned it off again and phoned Driscoll.
‘Any developments?’
‘Feng called in to Hungry Jacks in Midland while you were visiting the prison.’ A pause. ‘Anybody interesting?’
‘No,’ said Cato.
‘And according to the radio news you lot have somebody in the frame for the Guido garrotting.’
‘Really? Did they give a name?’
‘Nobody I recognised. Some dude from over east.’
Cato called Pavlou. ‘You got somebody for Caletti?’
‘Nabbed him on the Nullarbor just outside Eucla. The brothel-visiting Johnny-No-Mates we saw on the CCTV. He’s an ex-mill worker from Tasmania, freelances for some Eastern States gangs. He puts on this slow-witted village cretin act and it works a treat. The Feds credit him with over thirty hits in the last three years.’
From Day of the Jackal to Day of the Yokel, mused Cato. ‘So it was just some old grudge against Guido finally got paid off.’
‘Yep.’
‘You sure?’
A drop in the temperature. ‘Yes, I’m sure. What’s your interest?’
‘I just wondered if, given his business interests, Guido had possibly crossed the Chinese.’
‘No, it doesn’t look like it. You and your Yellow Peril fixation.’ Pavlou chuckled. ‘Who’d have thought?’
Who indeed? So Guido’s death was not a result of a hacking exercise run out of Shanghai. It was a humdrum domestic gang feud. ‘Congratulations,’ said Cato.
‘No email from you, yet,’ said Pavlou. ‘Are you interested in that job or not?’
Hutchens on life support, hovering between two worlds. If he didn’t make it would Cato still be happy in the Fremantle of
fice? It depended on his boss. DI Spittle seemed a good sort but he was just a stand-in. Could Cato work for Pavlou? Right now, no. But he was too cowardly and perhaps too mercenary to take a position, yet.
‘Been busy,’ he said.
‘Tick tock.’
Cato got back to Driscoll and told him about Caletti.
‘The garrotte doesn’t have your name on it then. You can breathe easy.’
‘That secret hacking unit in Shanghai. Is that bullshit or what?’
‘No, it’s not. Phoebe is in town right now because she believes you’re a threat. And she can only believe that from monitoring your communications.’
Or being tipped off by a friend closer to home, thought Cato.
He studied his wing mirror again. The white Pajero. The black Honda. He wondered which was the most dangerous.
Deb dropped Cato at the hospital. When he got to the room Marjorie was there, reading a book in the chair by Hutchens’ bed, Fifty Shades Darker. She closed it and gave him a weak, tired smile.
‘I’ll leave you blokes in peace and go and get a coffee. You’ll have a bit of catching up to do.’
‘How is he?’
‘Fucked,’ she whispered. ‘I think I’ve lost him.’ Her eyes filled. She gave Cato a hug and a peck on the cheek on the way out.
Cato took his place in the vacated chair and studied the paraphernalia of life support around his boss. Tubes, wires, heart monitor, ventilator. What he could see of Hutchens’ head and face that wasn’t bandaged or gauzed looked hideous. He was barely recognisable.
‘I’ve just been up to see Tricia Mundine.’ It felt strange talking to a man in a coma, like talking to himself. ‘She says she’s sorry.’ He waved a hand at the lights and beeps. ‘For all this.’
He didn’t want to talk work but, after racking his brain for an alternative, he had nothing else to offer. ‘DI Pavlou has offered me a job with the Armani Brigade. Can you see me in one of those suits? Matching ties?’ He shook his head. ‘No, me neither.’ He patted his boss’s hand. ‘You need to get yourself sorted and out of here before she drags me away. I thought you were a pain in the arse to work for, but she makes you look like a pussy.’ He could hear Marjorie in the corridor, chatting with the nurse. ‘Come back, mate.’ Cato wiped his eyes with the back of his hand as Marjorie walked in.
She leaned over and kissed her husband.
‘Jeez love, hurry up and get well or this bastard’s going to start blubbing on me, or get the poetry books out or something.’ She settled back into her chair, found her page in Fifty Shades and winked at Cato. ‘You’re a good sort, Phil. A real mate.’ She squeezed her husband’s hand. ‘We’re right here, pumpkin. Like it or not.’
On his way back to the office Cato grabbed some late lunch at the cafe over the road. He opted for a chicken salad roll and an apple juice and slid into a spare booth just inside the door. It was still raining and the sky, gunmetal grey, held the promise of plenty more to come. Next door, Roy Orbison drifted out of The Record Finder – ‘Love Hurts’. Zac Harvey, the broken-hearted troll. Sixteen year old Emily and the Shanghai gangster Yu Guangming? Cato didn’t want to believe it. Emily had once been like a niece to him. His main memory of her was of a four-year-old in pink, another Suzuki-trained piano prodigy bashing out tunes for him on their baby grand in the Preston Point mansion. But it wouldn’t be the first time such an inter-generational matching came to pass. Yu had the looks and the predatory skills that could be mistaken for charm. If there was a history of communication between them then it would have been in his interests to take her phone with him. Her phone records hadn’t been examined as thoroughly as her parents’ and her older brother, Matt’s. The focus had been Francis and his business connections, and then Matt and his history of bad behaviour. But what of it? Whether the motive was business-related or a crime of passion the result was the same. Yu had slaughtered the Tan family. Maybe DI Pavlou was right, maybe it really was time to bury the matter and move on. Several birds, one stone. If he stopped digging then probably the threats to him and his family would also recede.
In the office DI Spittle wanted a word. His role as acting boss had been extended indefinitely, he told Cato. And he had some good news: Cato’s acting sergeant’s position had been confirmed as permanent, he’d find the details in his inbox. Something in Spittle’s manner gave Cato the distinct impression that the powers-that-be saw the attack on Hutchens as a blessing in disguise. The adverse publicity he’d generated at the Inquiry, added to his colourful history, could now be put to rest with a tragic yet heroic retirement and invalid pension. And if Hutchens died that would make things even easier. Spittle had brought his own family photos in – him and his lovely wife somewhere tropical plus another of his son collecting a footy trophy. He was settling in.
‘How’s Mick?’ asked Spittle.
‘Half-dead,’ said Cato. ‘That holiday you mentioned?’
‘Yes?’
‘How does two weeks from Monday work for you?’
A flicker of the eyelids, a hint of insult. He’d been the bearer of what he believed was good news. ‘I’m sure we’ll manage.’
‘Cheers,’ said Cato.
Loose ends. He called Driscoll.
‘Pass the word along. I’m giving up on the Chinese connection. I’ll even sign their “cease and desist” letter. Just tell them to piss off home and leave me and my family alone.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘A dose of common sense.’
‘That’s not like you.’
‘The times they are a changing. It’s a new world order come Monday. Survival of the fittest.’
‘Jeez, you are in a bad mood aren’t you?’ A pause. ‘So I don’t suppose I can appeal to your strong moral compass and sense of justice one last time?’
‘Alright then,’ muttered Cato, shoulders slumping. ‘Let’s hear it.’
Driscoll outlined his plan. ‘Go on,’ he said at the end. ‘You know you want to.’
Driscoll was right. Cato did want in. He left instructions for Chris Thornton and Deb Hassan to review the Tan family phone records and, in particular, to look at those other family members who had previously received only cursory attention.
‘I’m after any connections with Yu Guangming or any other such persons of interest.’
‘Why?’ said Thornton.
‘Deb will brief you. It’s about confirming a witness story – or not, as the case may be.’
‘Fair enough. Did you get a chance to look at that latest Des O’Neill stuff I sent through?’
‘No, give me the gist.’
‘He was the executor of Benjamin’s trust fund. Guess who stood to gain when the poor little bugger got run over?’
‘Invite Des in for a chat in the morning. No hurry, no hint of drama. We’ll see what he’s got to say for himself. Meanwhile keep digging if you get any free time.’
‘You due back any time today, sarge?’
‘Can’t say. I’m doing important work for the government.’
‘Good luck with that. They’re history after the weekend.’
‘I’d better get my skates on then.’
He’d arranged to meet Driscoll in the lobby of the Duxton. It was late afternoon by the time he got there. Black clouds boiled over the Swan River and wind tore at the surface of the water. St Georges Terrace was clogged. Those who’d started their commute home early already had headlights on. Inside, the Duxton was an oasis of warmth, light and luxury. Driscoll was there with Phoebe Li and Peter Tien.
‘No Feng?’ enquired Cato.
‘No,’ said Phoebe. She snapped her fingers. ‘Peter, give him the letter.’
The lawyer looked irritated but did as he was told. It was another copy of the cease and desist order. Cato read it through once more, out loud. How he must withdraw the allegation that Phoebe Li was in a business and personal relationship with Yu Guangming and further that she was involved in a conspiracy with said person to defraud her father’s
company and the Chinese people. And he was to stop harassing the Li family with his defamatory investigations. Blah, blah, and blah again.
‘Remind me,’ said Cato. ‘What do I get in return?’
‘Peace of mind,’ said Phoebe.
‘Not enough. My family and I have been threatened.’
Peter smiled reassuringly. ‘You have our word that any such threat you perceive is henceforth vanquished.’
‘Henceforth vanquished,’ said Cato. ‘I like the sound of that. But I also have other concerns. My career is in jeopardy, my financial security.’
Peter and Phoebe exchanged a look. ‘Our understanding is that your career is flourishing.’
‘You’re well informed,’ conceded Cato.
‘But we do understand the need for financial security,’ said Peter, entering the game. ‘What level of jeopardy are we talking about?’
They agreed a level and a method of payment. Cato signed on the dotted line, two copies, one for him to have and hold. ‘Happy now?’
‘Thank you,’ said Peter, graciously.
Phoebe was less forgiving. ‘You have caused us a great deal of time and expense, Mr Kwong.’
‘Sorry.’
Peter waved down a waiter and they ordered drinks to seal the moment.
‘So when are you headed back to China?’ wondered Cato, sipping a pricey Pinot Noir that carried a perfume redolent of fox piss.
‘When we are ready,’ said Phoebe.
‘Checking out the sights?’
‘Unfinished business.’
Cato took a punt, and deviated from Driscoll’s script. ‘That would be Des O’Neill?’
‘Who?’ said Phoebe.
Driscoll was shaking his head. Trying to warn him off. Cato ignored him. ‘Wongan Holdings. With Yu Guangming out of the way, he’s the only one standing between you and the Cambridge Gardens site.’
Peter Tien stood and offered his hand. ‘Well, we have a few matters to attend to. Thank you for your cooperation Detective Sergeant Kwong.’
‘Pity. I was hoping to be able to say a proper goodbye to Mr Feng.’
‘I’ll pass your good wishes on to him.’