Getting Warmer (30 page)

‘Hi,’ he said raising his mug and smiling and trying to seem like totally relaxed and unthreatened and cool. Actually, to be fair, he seemed like an okay bloke. Jake was right though, he did look like the hillbilly hippy goat from
Hoodwinked.
Cato gave him the peace sign and continued out the back. When Jake looked up from the trampoline, Cato’s heart lurched. The boy’s face was raw and swollen and there was a red, ugly sutured weal running diagonally across his right cheek.

‘Dad?’ It was a confused look. Cato was on the wrong territory.

‘Mind if I join you?’ Jake shifted up and they both lay on the sagging canvas, springs squeaking with the adult intrusion. Cato lifted a finger to the cheek. ‘How’s it feeling?’

‘Sore. How about you?’

‘Yeah, sore as.’ Cato could see through the French windows, Jane standing beside Simon at the kitchen counter with a proprietorial arm around his neck, trying to be casual and not too interested in what was going on outside. He turned his attention back to Jake. ‘Sorry about all that, mate, it must have been pretty scary.’

‘It was a bit.’ Jake looked away and pulled distractedly at a loose thread on his T-shirt. ‘I thought you were going to die.’

Cato’s chest was bursting. ‘Ditto.’ He searched Jake’s face for a clue to the answer to his next question. ‘You coming over next weekend then?’

‘Why wouldn’t I?’

Cato mock-frowned. ‘Dunno, you might get a better offer.’

‘Yeah well, I’ll let you know if I do.’

‘Yeah well, I might be washing my hair that night anyway.’

‘Yeah, you need to.’

‘S’pose you reckon you’re gunna be a real chick magnet now with a scar on your cheek. Well just wait until I wash my hair.’

‘Yeah, polish your walking frame while you’re at it, grandad.’

And so it went. A round of petty insults that signified all was well with the world. Jane and Simon looked out, bemused, at the two puerile squabbling boys and continued sipping their coffees.

Another knock on another door and another frosty reception.

‘What do you want?’

Felix wasn’t prepared to open the door further than about ten centimetres. Behind him, Madge yapped and Janice hovered.

‘I want to say thank you,’ said Cato. He had a warm humanitarian glow about him today. Jake was going to be okay. Everything was going to be okay. Fremantle was a great place to live and society wasn’t going to the dogs.

‘What?’

‘Thank you.’

‘What for?’ said Felix, looking for an ambush.

‘Can I come in?’

‘No.’

Cato waggled his fingers in a wave and smiled. ‘Hi, Janice.’

Her face lit up. ‘Open the door, pumpkin, he’s not going to hurt you.’

‘How do you know?’ Felix muttered back over his shoulder.

‘Open it,’ she growled.

He did and Madge rushed out yapping and nipping around Cato’s ankles. Cato found another smile and held fast. ‘Just the girl I wanted to talk to.’ He crouched down and tried to pat Madge but the dog bared her teeth. Cato backed off and stood to face Felix and Janice. ‘Madge’s yapping saved my, and my son’s, life. If she hadn’t woken me up things might have turned out very different.’

Felix beamed and scooped Madge up into his man-bosom. ‘Madgy sweetie, you’re a hero and you’ve made a new friend!’

Let’s not get carried away, thought Cato. ‘So anyway, thanks, and forget that complaint notice I put in. I’ll tear it up.’

Felix manfully put out his hand for shaking and Cato obliged. Janice pecked him on the cheek. Madge snarled and bared her teeth again.

‘Got a moment?’

They were in DI Hutchens’ office, door closed. This was Lara’s decisive step towards a new start. She braced herself.

‘Yeah, what’s up?’ said Hutchens, half-tuning in.

Lara handed him a piece of paper. ‘I need you to sign this.’

Hutchens read it. ‘Major Crime want you seconded to them?’

‘Yes, boss. For a year. Starting next month.’

‘You’ll be keen to go then, I expect.’ The expression and voice were neutral but there was no disguising the bruise there.

‘It’s a great opportunity, boss.’ Lara’s eyes were shining with emotions she never expected to feel.

‘Of course.’ He scribbled his consent signature in the space provided. ‘Bit out of the blue?’

‘Yeah. Look, I really appreciate you giving me that second chance, after Hopetoun. I won’t ever forget that.’

‘No worries. You’re a good cop, Lara. Just remember to stay on the right side of that line. All shortcuts do is get you nowhere fast.’

‘Right, boss.’

‘And when you get to Major Crime, choose your friends carefully.’

Colin Graham’s words as they shared a beer that first day in the Sail and Anchor.

Lara left and closed the door behind her. Farmer John had delivered on his part of the bargain. Now, he was someone she really could learn a few tricks from. She scrolled through to his number and her thumb played over the keypad.

Fancy a drink?

It was just before ten when they found the sneaker with the foot bones inside it. Mintie the cadaver dog had barked once and sat down to receive her reward. The photographs from the fly-over on the day before had picked up a couple of sites worth investigating and the GPR teams had been brought in early that morning. The circus was back in town, minus the jester this time. No Wellard, no sick games: this one was strictly by the book. Cato took a step closer, shading his eyes against the midmorning glare. Hutchens appraised him.

‘Looks like your Santa Claus trick with the big black sack paid off.’

Hutchens was right. The science and the gadgets backed up Cato’s theory. The body was at Star Swamp, within the block of earth he’d guesstimated. Wellard had stuck with familiar ground for his burial sites. Basic animal instinct. Beeliar had been a charade. It might well have been a place he’d recce’d as a possibility but he’d stuck with Star Swamp for Bree Petkovic and, later, Caroline Penny. This was Briony’s last resting place and, as the day progressed and the forensic team patiently sifted, more bones were added to the sad jigsaw.

‘Finders keepers,’ said Cato, wondering how he should break the news to Shellie.

‘Yeah,’ said Hutchens. ‘Losers fucking weepers.’

Cato looked at his boss. ‘You know I can’t help feeling that if you’d done the right thing with Gordon Wellard way back then, we might not be here today.’

‘Way back when?’

According to the files there was at least one more body out there somewhere from the time before he disappeared off the database.
Was this where he also buried that much earlier nameless victim? Maybe some in Thailand too? Wellard wasn’t a serial thrill killer in the classic sense, more like a serial disregarder of human life. A man who valued no one and nothing but himself. And he made no real effort to hide what he was. He didn’t have to.

‘You’ve known he was a nasty piece of work for a couple of decades now. You protected him because he and his brother gave you titbits of information about armed robberies.’ Cato scuffed the dust with his heel. ‘The TABs, the banks, they’re all insured against loss. That’s more than you can say for those who crossed Gordy Wellard’s path.’

Hutchens sighed. ‘I’ll have to live with that.’

‘Yeah, so will Shellie.’

Stephen Mazza sat stony-faced in his prison greens between two corrections officers. The funeral was at Fremantle Crematorium: discounting the police and prison officer contingent there were only two legitimate mourners.

It wasn’t a religious service; Shellie had never been into that. Instead a calm and businesslike woman from the funeral directors spoke about the importance of living and loving and focusing on the good things about people and life. She spoke about seizing the moment because you never knew when it was going to get snatched away from you.

Cato was seated next to Shellie, for a brief instant their shoulders had touched and she’d jolted away like she’d been burnt. She sat rigid: folding a hankie tight in her thin hands. The pain hadn’t ended when he’d told her about the discovery of the body. The autopsy on the remains had drawn an unsparing picture of the level of violence Bree had suffered at the hands of Gordon Francis Wellard and it had been Cato’s job to pass on the details. For Shellie there was no closing of books or finding of peace.

Finally some music, ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, and the coffin rolled away to a last haunted look from Stephen Mazza. Shellie choked out a sob and stared at the displayed photo of her daughter in pink tutu and fairy wings, casting spells with a plastic wand.

‘You’ve done a good job for those round-eye mates of yours, bro.’

Jimmy Tran was out of intensive care and propped up in bed. In the month or so since the shooting, Cato had been cleared by the Internals but he still felt a need to face Jimmy. The weather had finally cooled, autumn was in the air, and the notion of buying air conditioning had once again receded.

‘Round eyes?’ said Cato, pretending he didn’t know what Jimmy was talking about.

‘The dirty denim and leather boys. The Village People from Hell.’

‘Oh, the Apaches.’

‘If I could lift a finger I’d wag it at you. You put me in a wheelchair, Vincent in jail for life, and the infamous Tran Gang broken up. No need for a war now, the Apaches just walk in and pick up the pieces you left behind.’

He was right of course and now that Vincent was locked up, the bikies had even withdrawn their allegation against him. So, in public at least, they could still hold on to their precious outlaw code of silence. They did have one setback though. A fortnight earlier Apache Sergeant-at-Arms Bryn Irskine, AKA Eyebrow Stud, had suffered terrible burns in a freak domestic accident with a barbecue gas bottle. Karina Ford had sent Cato a happy face text the day after. Coincidence?

‘I’ll cop to putting you in a wheelchair but Vincent put himself where he is. The Tran Gang broken up? Your loyal underlings buggered off first chance they got. It’s not about round-eyes or slants, Jimmy. It’s about good guys and bad guys.’

‘Polly want a cracker?’ Tran sucked at a straw near his head. ‘They trained you well, didn’t they?’

‘I still can’t work out why you guys couldn’t divvy up the spoils. Boom state. Plenty for everybody. Turf wars are just so last-century, Jimmy.’

‘Don’t think I never tried, mate.’ Tran cleared his throat. ‘It’s funny how your colleagues – the late Mr Graham, most of the Gangs guys, the undercovers – all found it easier to reach “accommodations” with the Apaches but they never thought to see if I was up for any deals. I’m a smart fellow, a deep thinker. I can grease the palm of a dirty cop as well as the next gangster. I guess my face didn’t fit, eh?’ Tran laid his head back against the pillow like all the words had tired him out. ‘Sound familiar Cato-san?’

‘No,’ Cato lied.

‘You know it was me that let Santo know he’d been blown?’

‘You? How come?’

‘I heard, via one of my Northbridge associates, a few days before the murder. Graham must have been behind it. Leaking left, right and centre. Either he was hoping I’d kill Santo for him or he was planting it as a motive for when he came after me later.’

‘And?’

‘I sat on it for a day or two then summoned Santo to meet me in the club that night. We did our ... business, as usual. Then I told him somebody had dobbed on him.’

‘What did Santo say?’

‘Nothing, just looked a bit crook. By then Graham must have assumed I wasn’t going to do what he wanted when he wanted. His little African hit man must have been Plan B.’

‘You never raised this earlier.’

‘Didn’t work it out until later. Got plenty of time to think lying here.’

It made sense: Graham was capable of having Santo killed but getting the Trans to do it first would have been a good move.

‘Would you have killed Santo eventually?’

‘Maybe, probably. First I wanted to try to use the knowledge over him. Col was obviously too impatient. Must’ve had a deadline.’

Cato waved a hand at the medical paraphernalia. ‘Anyway I came here to say sorry for this. It wasn’t intended.’

Tran studied him for a second. ‘I can see that. Pity you didn’t shoot straight and put me out of my misery.’ He smiled sadly. ‘I guess that’s what they call karma.’

Cato had no reply. Seeing Jimmy Tran trapped in this limbo, once again the story of Tantalus came to mind. Greed. Blood sacrifice. And now the punishment: everything just beyond reach.

‘You know they intend to finish us off don’t you?’ said Tran.

‘How do you mean?’

‘For good. They’ve already marked Vincent in Casuarina. He’s on his own and the screws aren’t going to help him.’

‘Protective custody?’

‘What, with the child rapists and the psychos in the Boneyard?’

‘The nail-gun thing should tick a few boxes.’

‘You know what I mean.’

Cato gave the matter some thought. He didn’t like how the Apaches were getting it nearly all their own way, and Karina Ford would attest that they easily matched the Trans for viciousness. He came up with a suggestion. Cato as Cupid, the matchmaker. He preferred not to think too much about the possible consequences but karma moves in mysterious ways. If the prison bikies went looking for trouble, they could have it.

Vincent Tran was aware that the showers had emptied in the last thirty seconds and realised that his time must be at hand. Steam hung in the air, taps and showerheads dripped, water ran down plugholes. Condensation beaded the off-white tiles. There was the squeak of trainers on wet ceramic.

‘Vinnie.’

It was the bikie they called Kenny, with a lump of metal unscrewed from the exercise bike in the gym. He was with a friend. What was his name again? Danny, yes Danny, and he had something sharp. Vincent stood naked before them. Instinctively he cupped his genitals, closed his eyes, and waited for the end.

There was a gurgling sound. When Vincent opened his eyes he saw Danny on the floor of the showers with something sticking out of his neck and a crimson geyser spouting forth. Kenny had disappeared. A short wiry African stepped out of the mist with a friendly smile and offered his hand for shaking.

‘I am Dieudonne, it means “gift from God”. I think we are going to be great friends.’