Getting Warmer (27 page)

In all of the double-dealing, the lies and deceits, the mistakes, the spilled blood – one thing remained clear. If Cato did nothing else, the least he could do was bring Shellie’s daughter back to her one last time. The sun was long gone when Cato pulled into the car park nearest to the spot where he’d last stood: the dumpsite for Gordy Wellard’s other murder victim, Caroline Penny. Star Swamp.

The place was deserted. No other cars. No people. Lights were on in houses but, at just gone seven-thirty, this suburban street felt like an abandoned Hollywood backlot, a ghost town.

Cato stepped out of the car and peered into the dark shadows of the bushland. He took a torch from the boot and looked once again up and down the street. Early evening and quiet as the grave. Was it just such a time that Wellard had brought Caroline Penny here? Cato tried to imagine himself into Wellard’s way of seeing the world. It wasn’t easy, there was no way he was as twisted as that evil fucker. But he could try.

He went back to the boot once more. There was a roll of black bin liners from times gone past when he took an interest in his domestic affairs. He tore one off, flicked it open with a snap of air, and began packing whatever he could find into it. Jake’s deflated soccer ball and the boots which were now too small for him: a towel, musty and mouldy from a long-ago beach trip: his perished snorkelling fins: the car jack and tyre lever plus assorted tools. An umbrella. There wasn’t much else. He looked around him. A low wall with some loose bricks where a car had scraped it in passing. He kicked a few free and put them into the bin liner too. Now it was splitting from the sharp edges so he snapped off a couple more bags and put the original one and contents inside those for reinforcement. It still wasn’t anywhere near as heavy as a body but at least it was a weighty and awkward encumbrance. So, if he had a mind to, where would he bury it?

Lara was on phone duty and it suited her just fine. The dobbings had spiked after the evening news, with reported sightings of Vincent Tran all over the metro area and as far south as Albany and as far north as Kununurra. That narrowed it down to half a continent. The photograph and physical description had been taken as just a loose guide by most callers: Vincent was variously reported as being ‘among a group of other Middle Eastern men hanging around outside Kewdale Mosque and looking suspicious’ or ‘loitering at Thornlie railway station with a group of other Aboriginal youths’. Lara listened patiently as a woman with an English accent recalled the man sitting next to her on the bus home to Mount Hawthorn.

‘He were moving his hands around in his pocket. Not in a nice way like, you know what I mean?’

‘Can you describe him?’

‘Aye, he were a bloody filthy old bugger.’

Lara fed through the least bizarre sightings: the ones where the subject was at least male, Asian, and the right age range.

As the phone traffic slowed, she filled her time by logging in to the official history of the Trans. She’d already been through this when she and Colin Graham were lining them up for the murder of Santo Rosetti. The leaky boat from Vietnam in the early 80s; the Malaysian detention centre; the petty crime and teenage street gang in Balga in the late 90s; the ascent to leadership and the criminal big time during the noughties. Big brother Jimmy took up most of the file space: he was the leader, he was the one who’d made all the moves with Vincent tagging along behind as a faithful lieutenant and occasional enforcer. That must have been when Vinnie had developed a taste for it: his sadism evolving from a business necessity into an intrinsic pleasure.

Both Jimmy and Vincent had the usual drugs, assault, affray and weapons charges that gangsters collect on their way up the food chain. For both brothers these charges had dropped off in the last few years as they got smarter and others did the shit work for them. The most recent charge that stuck was an assault just over two years ago. Somebody had looked at Vincent the wrong way at a Sunday afternoon session in a Cottesloe pub and had ended up
blinded in one eye and needing surgery to reconstruct the shattered cheekbone and torn flesh. Vincent had served nine months for that.

Lara thought about Vincent and the violence he was clearly capable of, yet how his presence barely registered in the shadow of big brother Jimmy. There was no brooding menace, no simmering cauldron of rage; Vincent just wasn’t there. Jimmy’s shadow: it was a good place to hide. The phone rang again.

‘You after that Chinese bloke on the telly?’

‘Vietnamese, yes. Something to report, sir?’

‘Yeah, I’m watching him now. He’s just parked up beside Star Swamp and he’s obviously up to no good.’

Cato slung the bin bag over his shoulder and set off through the dark bushland like one of Snow White’s more sinister dwarves: the eighth one, Creepy. With the torch in his free hand, he headed for where he thought Caroline Penny’s dumpsite was. When he was here last time, in broad daylight, he’d estimated it was about thirty metres from the car parking bays to the grave. There was a fork in the path just two metres ahead. Cato cursed the fact that on that previous visit he’d neglected to trace the route from the car bays to the grave more diligently. He panned the torch beam, searching for a familiar feature in the dense bush. A breeze rustled the gum trees, creaks and other strange noises emanated from the darkness. Lost already. What the hell was he doing here anyway, what was all this meant to prove?

Cato turned back to face the direction he’d come from and tried to get a reverse fix on where he needed to go. When he’d last stood at the dumpsite and looked towards the car bays he’d been aware of something in his left field of vision. Then he remembered: a mobile phone tower on a hill behind the houses. He could see it now. Readjusting his bearings, it was clear that he should take the right fork in the path. He took it, the lumpy contents of the bin bag clunking and clinking and digging into his back. Cato Kwong – the Method Detective. This was bullshit: he’d be better off using a water-diviner and ouija board. The load wasn’t that heavy but he was sick of the constant poking from the sharp protuberances so he
put it down for a moment. He estimated he was now between fifteen and twenty metres in from the car bays and at least ten away from Caroline Penny’s grave.

Standing still once again, surrounded by the dark bush and the whisperings and rustlings of the breeze, something tugged at the edges of his memory. Something he’d read in the files and background notes. Cato flicked the torch off in the hope that the meditative darkness might help him concentrate. He cricked his neck and eased his shoulders as the blackness settled around him. Cato braced himself to reassume his burden and it came back into focus: the missing memory. Then he heard a footscrape and the ratchet of a shotgun and saw the blinding light.

‘Good question,’ said Cato when the TRG man had given him back his ID and asked him what the fuck he was doing there.

‘So answer it.’

Cato was facedown with his right nostril pressed into the sandy soil, a knee in his back, his wrists cuffed behind him, and a Glock in his ear. ‘Call DI Hutchens at Fremantle.’

‘We did, he told us to ask you what the fuck you’re doing here and to not let you go until you tell us.’

‘It’s a long story.’

‘We’ve got all night and you’re not going anywhere.’

So Cato told him.

‘Yeah, the DI said you were fucking weird.’

‘Can I go now?’

‘Sure.’ The TRG man summoned a colleague. ‘Help Santa put the presents back in his sack and escort him to his sleigh.’

Lara had signed off from her phone-manning duties by about ten-thirty the previous night and headed home with a guilty giggle after she’d heard what happened to Cato. Well he was Asian, within Vincent Tran’s age range give or take ten years, and he was acting suspiciously. Poor bugger, he really did have a bad day. All in all, the non-taxing phone duties and the jokes at Cato’s expense seemed to have done more for her wellbeing than half-a-dozen therapy sessions and a shipload of chocolate. A good night’s sleep had helped too. That was the story so far today anyway.

She’d agreed to go into the office again for another round of low intensity phone-manning and file-shuffling. She was actually looking forward to it and wondered whether she’d ever get back to being a proper cop or whether she should just quit and get a job in an office or a call centre. Today, neither prospect worried her.

Vincent Tran remained on the loose and, according to the Crimestoppers hotline, he was here, there, and everywhere. Lara scanned the log of reports. Mistaken identity, grudge calls, time wasted: from Mirrabooka to Mandurah and Swanbourne to Swan Hill, all points north, south, east and west of the metro area had produced nothing. DI Hutchens crossed her line of vision.

‘Any progress, boss?’

‘Nah. You up for another day of this?’

‘Sure. I’ll keep you posted if I’m heading for a meltdown.’

‘That’d be good. Got enough spot fires to put out already.’

‘Perils of leadership.’ Lara scanned the office partitions and the array of heads poking just above them. ‘No sign of Cato?’

‘Santa Kwong’s got an appointment with the Inquisition today, the Tran shooting.’

‘Lucky boy. Where do you want me today, boss?’

‘Phones have quietened down, maybe trawl the files yet again, see if anything gels.’ Hutchens continued on his way, voice trailing over his shoulder. ‘Any chance of a coffee?’

‘No,’ she said, without rancour.

Hutchens grunted and closed his door behind him.

‘Did you issue a warning before you discharged your weapon?’

‘I believe we did, yes.’

‘Did
you
issue a warning before
you
discharged
your
weapon?’ The Inspector from Internals reminded Cato of the woman from H&R Block who did his tax every year. She seemed similarly single-minded.

‘I believe
we
did, yes.’

And so it went on like that for another twenty minutes. Thrust, parry, thrust, parry.

‘So in your professional judgement, both your life and the lives of your colleagues and members of the public were in immediate danger and you acted according to your training and within the prescribed guidelines?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘Is that a yes?’

‘Yes. Ma’am.’

The Accountant finished typing on her laptop. She pressed print and something rolled out of a nearby machine. ‘Read this and sign at the bottom. Three copies.’ Cato did as he was told. ‘One for me, one for you, one for your boss. That’s all for now. You’ll be hearing from us again.’

‘Look forward to it.’ Cato cleared his throat. ‘So am I suspended or what?’

‘Why would you be? You don’t appear to have done anything wrong, until and unless our investigations show otherwise. In the meantime your decision to work as normal or take stress leave or counselling is a matter for you and your supervisor to work out.’

‘Right. Thank you.’

‘Pleasure.’ She stuck out a firm hand for shaking. ‘Good luck.’ And then she left, whistling ‘Jingle Bells’.

Cato sauntered back into the detectives’ section and heard it again floating out over the partitions: a chorus of whistling from his colleagues. ‘Jingle Bells.’

‘Ho, ho, ho,’ he replied, mustering a smile.

On his desk, a stack of yellow post-it notes from his colleagues letting him know what they wanted for Christmas. He swept them into a bin, sat down and logged on. Should he take stress leave? It would be good timing with Jake coming over later today. He could have some quality time with his son and make a very long weekend of it. Cato glanced around the office. Banter and humour could be therapeutic at times like this. At others it could tip you over the edge. Those who hadn’t been whistling ‘Jingle Bells’ were casting furtive looks to see how close he was to post-traumatic crack-up. Some were no doubt taking bets: Cato first, or Lara? He caught Lara Sumich looking back at him.

‘Coffee?’ she said.

Was it a trap? ‘Sure, thanks.’

He wanted to follow up on the revelatory nugget he’d uncovered last night, just before he found himself face down with a TRG boot on his neck. Still, it wasn’t every day that Lara Sumich offered to make you a coffee. He joined her in the kitchen. The last time they’d shared this kind of enclosed space was in Hopetoun town hall when he’d embarrassingly got the notion that just because she’d had sex with him she might actually like him and want to spend some time with him. Huh.

‘Milk and sugar?’ she said.

‘Milk and none, thanks.’ Lara spooned some instant into a mug and added water. His coffee snobbery was being sorely tested of late. ‘You’re back,’ he said.

‘Yes.’ Lara sloshed some milk in and handed him the mug.

‘Is that a good idea?’

Lara’s face darkened. ‘That’s my business.’

‘Okay.’ Cato warily sniffed the coffee. ‘No sign of Vincent yet then?’

‘No. Our most promising lead turned out to be you.’

‘Yeah I know, we all look alike.’ He drank some; not quite as disgusting as he expected.

‘How was the Inquisition?’

Cato shrugged. ‘Pussycats. I get the impression it’s already been decided.’

‘There’s a lot of that going around lately.’

‘That’s fine as long as looking after us suits their purposes. It doesn’t always work that way.’

Lara sipped her tea and said nothing.

‘Thanks for the cuppa,’ said Cato. ‘Keep me posted if you find Vincent.’ He rinsed his cup out in the sink and left it to drain as instructed by the angry note on the cupboard door. He placed a hand on Lara’s shoulder and felt her flinch. ‘I’m sorry about how it all ended up with Colin.’

‘Yeah,’ she said flatly and rinsed her cup out too.

Cato found what he was looking for with a few clicks. It had come to him as he stood in the dark at Star Swamp bracing himself to pick up the dead weight of the bin bag and continue his walk through the bush. The files confirmed it. Caroline Penny had been a mere slip of a thing, weighing in at not much more than forty-five kilos. Bree, by contrast, was up nearer sixty-five. Was it a simple weight equation? Caroline was lighter and so could be carried further. Plus she was the second victim, so Wellard probably wanted to take her deeper into the bush and further off the path to minimise the chances of discovery. Except he’d been unlucky and a woman and her inquisitive dog had stumbled across Caroline’s remains anyway.

If Bree was the first and the heaviest did that suggest a shorter journey along the bush path, both because she was harder to carry and because Wellard was less experienced at identifying optimum dumpsites? Cato’s load had only been twenty kilos max and he’d felt the need for a break about fifteen metres along the path. From where Cato stopped to where Caroline was buried was about another fifteen metres – and the accessible area off the path into the bush before it got too dense was around two metres either side. That was
a total area of perhaps sixty square metres. It was a simple, indeed overly simplistic, theory but it was more than anything else they had. And it helped narrow down the search site considerably. All he had to do now was persuade DI Hutchens that it was a really great idea.

‘Go home, Cato. You’re under a lot of stress.’

‘We’re only talking about sixty square metres.’

‘We’re only talking out of our arses. Go home.’

‘One GPR team could cover it in an hour or two.’

‘Do you know how much it costs for two blokes and a hoover?’

‘Sir, I...’

‘Cato.’ A warning growl. ‘Go home. That’s an order.’

It was nearly lunchtime. Jake would be dropped at his house around 6p.m. The decision on whether or not to take a longer weekend with his son had just been made for him. Cato grabbed his things and left.

From the back of the crammed meeting room Lara surveyed the glum, frustrated faces of the team behind the Vincent Tran manhunt. Up front, perched on the edge of a desk, DI Hutchens was the glummest and most frustrated of them all.

‘We’ve just had a report that he’s doing figure-of-eights down at Cockburn Ice Rink as we speak. Anybody want to check it out?’ There were a few bitter chuckles in reply. ‘Family, friends, known associates, we’ve knocked on all their doors more than once, some are under constant watch but so far not a peep. We’ve run down those on his mobile call list: again nothing. We’ve also tried GSM phone tracking but he’s savvy enough to only use it for a few seconds at a time then turns it off and keeps moving. He’s probably got a few spare unregistered prepaids anyway. So, any suggestions?’

A hand was raised. ‘Take hostages?’ It was Debbie Hassan, the surviving guard from Dieudonne’s hospital rampage.

Funnily enough nobody laughed; that’s how desperate things were.

‘Like who?’ said Hutchens. ‘This bloke’s a loner. The only one he cares about is big brother Jimmy and we’ve already got him.’

Another hand. ‘How about: come in now or we turn off Jimmy’s life support?’

Hutchens creased his brow. ‘How about we cut the funnies and get on with the job?’ That was the cue for the meeting to break up. Hutchens caught Lara’s eye and summoned her over. ‘Anything in the files?’

Lara shook her head. ‘As you say, he’s a loner. Everybody we’re looking at is really Jimmy’s circle and Vincent tagged along.’

‘Definitely no crew of his own, then?’

‘No.’ A thought occurred to Lara, a stone left unturned. ‘The only time he was away from Jimmy in the last couple of years was when he was in prison. We could see if he made any lasting acquaintances there that we don’t know about.’

Hutchens nodded, unconvinced. ‘Get onto Corrections for a list of his cellmates over the years then run a crosscheck with his recent mobile phone records.’ The DI ran a hand through his grey fringe. ‘If we haven’t got any progress by the end of the day I might revisit that life support idea.’