Bad Seed (4 page)

‘Tea?' said Mandy.

‘Great.'

They all sat and got down to business.

‘Dad?' Cato blew on his tea.

‘Asleep,' said Mandy. ‘Brain tumour. The doctor reckons three to six months.'

Cato felt like he'd been slapped. ‘That's quick.'

Susan sniffled and welled up.

‘The Parkinson's helped disguise the cancer symptoms until it was too late. There's an inoperable lump and secondaries in the lymph glands.' Mandy swallowed back some tears and Kenneth patted and rubbed her shoulder. ‘The best he can manage these days is a two-star Sudoku. And even that takes all day.'

And so it went around the table: preparations for a death in the family, the merits of home versus hospice. What ifs. Cato excused himself, ostensibly for a toilet visit, and went to his dad's room. The door was ajar. He looked through the gap. The old man was dozing, the bedside lamp was on. He didn't look any different, didn't look like he only had a few months left. A lock of grey hair hung down over the lined forehead. Cato felt a tightness, a pounding in his ribs.

Susan stood behind Cato. Put her arms around him, hands on his chest, rested her head against his back, let her tears dampen his shirt. ‘What are we going to do without him, Pip?'

‘I don't know, Susie.'

Cato realised he was crying too.

The power was out further south in parts of Bunbury and Busselton, and in some of the northern metro suburbs. Trees across roads, the roof lifted on a new school library in Palmyra, and flash flooding in low-lying areas. The SES had about three days to try to clean up the worst of it before the next front came through. A blown-over wheelie bin in nearby White Gum Valley had disgorged pizza cartons, cat cans, disposable nappies, and a large adjustable spanner covered in what appeared to be blood. The owner of the wheelie bin didn't remember putting a bloody spanner in there and didn't fancy getting the blame for anything, so he'd phoned it in. He had no criminal convictions but there was an outstanding speeding fine listed under his wife's name. The spanner was now with the scientists.

For Cato it was a good start to the new day. Or it would have been except for the ticket on the windscreen when he'd retrieved his Volvo earlier from the mortuary car park. At least the car started this time so he decided to try and be philosophical about it. Cato sipped on a takeaway coffee and glanced down the hill towards the Port Coogee marina as a strong breeze riffled the surface of the ocean and snapped at the crime scene tape. With the improvement in the weather, a shrine had appeared against the first tree outside the cordon on the corner of Leonidas Road: teddy bears, flowers, photos, messages of condolence. Leonidas, Cato recalled from his student days, had been king of the Spartans and sacrificial hero of the ‘300' Battle of Thermopylae. And now here he was, immortalised in Port Coogee. Leonidas had drawn his stubborn line in the sand and been
swept away by the relentless forces of history. Maybe that was the lesson of Port Coogee, mused Cato. Resistance is futile.

A temporary CCTV camera had been positioned to record those paying their respects, just in case one of them turned out to be the killer. Before he'd left the office, Cato's attention had been drawn to a Facebook tribute page for the daughter, Emily. The tech geeks at HQ were watching that too. Cato could see by his expression that Duncan Goldflam had some news.

‘Duncan?'

‘We're still wading through the soup: there's blood, fibres, bodily fluids of at least half-a-dozen people sloshing around in there. It's not going to be quick or easy.'

‘So?'

‘So I'm wondering why there are no significant traces around the spare bedroom.'

‘Show me.'

They went inside.

Matthew Tan's old bedroom had been converted to a guest room but still carried echoes of his presence. The perceptible tang of old cigarettes not completely erased by opened windows or a spray of air freshener. A fist-shaped dent in the wall beside the door where his temper had got the better of him. A gouge on the paintwork of the skirting boards below the window and the initials
MT
carved there with something sharp.

‘No sign that the killer even bothered opening the door,' said Goldflam. ‘No trail of footprints to the threshold. Nothing fresh on the handle.'

‘Because he knew there was nobody in here. Knew there was no point,' said Cato.

‘No wonder they promoted you.'

Cato's mobile tinkled.

‘Latest?' It was DI Hutchens, in a car, presumably on his way to another day at the Inquiry. This was his version of operational leadership.

‘Probably worth having another chat with Matthew, on the record and under caution this time.' Cato told him why.

‘Good enough for me. See if you can batter a confession out of him and wrap it all up before tea-time. That'll keep the hyenas yakking.'

‘Will do.'

‘And if Major Crime ring again, tell them fuck off from me.'

‘Yes, boss.'

‘When's the PM?'

‘Later this morning. Ten. I'll call in for a while but best let them get on with it given there's four bodies to work on.'

‘Fair enough. While you're up in town, let's meet. This circus usually wraps up around four. You still haven't told me about your relationship with the victims.'

‘Right.'

‘There's nothing for me to worry about here, is there? No conflicts of interest or anything?'

‘No.'

‘Good. There's a Dome over the road in the Trinity Arcade. See you there at four fifteen. Flat white, one sugar, your shout. Maybe a bikkie as well.'

Cato left Duncan Goldflam and his mob to continue sifting through the forensic broth in the Tan home and headed back to the office. A team of detectives and uniforms was doorknocking the area. That was expected to take most of the day. The boffins had taken away the array of family PCs, Macs, iPads, smartphones and such, and were picking the bones out of them. The telcos were also doing their bit: logging calls received and made, durations and locations in the preceding week, timeline to be expanded as required. DC Thornton hovered by Cato's desk.

‘You invited Matthew Tan in for a chat, yet?' said Cato.

‘He's just checking the availability of his lawyer, says he'll get back to us.'

‘Get back to him. Tell him I'm just checking the availability of the Tactical Response Group. If he's not in here by midday we're going to come knocking. But keep it nice and polite, he's in mourning.'

Thornton seemed pleased with that.

‘And you had no further contact with Mr Sinclair from that day?'

‘That's right.'

Burke QC checked his notes. ‘October twenty-second, nineteen ninety-seven. A Wednesday.'

‘I'll take your word for it.' Carol Ransley, a farm girl if ever there was one, had been the office manager at Hillsview Hostel between 1992 and 1998. She'd retired early to care for an ailing husband who had since died. Fifteen years on, and pushing seventy, she presented as remarkably fit and mentally sharp. Hutchens had hoped she might have gone to seed, at least mentally. No such luck.

Burke QC paused for a sip of water and enquired after Mrs Ransley's welfare. She curtly let him know she was fine and keen to proceed.

‘At what point did you alert the authorities to Mr Sinclair's disappearance?'

‘I gave it a couple of days.'

‘A couple of days?'

‘Look, to be honest he wasn't the most pleasant fella to work for. We were a bit relieved to have a break from him.'

‘Really? Why?'

‘He was a creep.' A titter in the public gallery. Hutchens saw Andy Crouch glance his way, grimly amused.

‘And how did that manifest?'

‘Manifest? He ogled the boys, bullied the female staff, and smelt funny. Don't know how he got the job in the first place. He wasn't right.'

‘We'll return to that in due course but for the moment perhaps you can tell us what eventuated after those couple of days.'

‘Eventuated?'

‘Happened.' Burke QC's manner was becoming more clipped by the minute. He didn't seem comfortable with ordinary folk who answered back. Hutchens stored that away.

‘Right. Well what eventually eventuated was that I called the cops.'

‘You called the police?'

‘That's right. And they sent a couple of blokes along to look into it.'

‘What did they conclude?'

‘Nothing. Thin air. Big mystery. After about a week they reckoned we should advertise for a new warden.'

‘Do you remember the names of the two police officers?'

‘Nah, not both, just the main one that did all the talking.'

‘Yes?'

A liver-spotted hand pointed to the back of the room. ‘Him over there, that Hutchens bloke.'

Hutchens could swear he heard Andy Crouch chuckle.

Cato's file on Matthew Tan was shaping up nicely and he hadn't even formally cautioned him yet. There was the matter of the young man's violent criminal record, assaults on previous girlfriends and a restraining order against him, along with some early results from the doorknock and from the examination of computers from the Tan household. It was a good starting point and Cato should have been feeling fairly cocky. But while Matthew himself was a blank, there was a pre-emptive smugness oozing from the lawyer, ‘Hooray' Henry Hurley – or was that just Hurley's permanent expression? Cato had crossed paths with him before, he was the lawyer of choice for those that could afford him. Cato feared an ambush. He decided to send DC Thornton out from the trenches first, just in case.

‘What kind of car do you drive, Mr Tan?' asked Thornton.

‘BMW 3 Series, black, new.'

‘Nice,' said Thornton. ‘It was parked outside your parents' home on Sunday night. The night of the murders.'

Matthew blinked at the final word. ‘They're my family. I told you already. I visited them that night.'

Thornton looked at his notebook. ‘And you told my colleagues you left by about nine p.m.?'

‘Yes.'

‘But your car was still there at midnight.'

‘I'd had a couple too many glasses of wine over dinner. I got Lily to pick me up. We were meeting some people in Freo.'

‘Hers is a Hyundai i30, silver, right?' A nod that turned into a ‘yes' for the benefit of the recording. ‘And when did you return to get your car?'

A show of thinking. ‘Midnight, one-ish? I'm not sure. The grog had worn off by then.'

‘Did you notice anything unusual when you returned?'

‘Like what?'

‘Cars parked nearby, lights on in the house, anybody around on the street. That kind of thing.'

‘No. The lights were off. I assumed everybody was asleep.' A choking sob on the last word. Henry Hurley patted his client's arm consolingly.

‘Mr Tan is clearly very upset. Is this really necessary right now?'

‘Yeah, sorry,' said Thornton. Back to Tan. ‘Do you remember the routes you took returning for your car and then heading back to your girlfriend's house?'

Matthew told them. Any CCTV along the way would be checked for corroboration. Cato cleared his throat as a signal that he was incoming. Thornton gave way.

‘Tell me about your folks. How do you get on with them?'

Matthew had been staring at the tabletop. He lifted his eyes to Cato's. ‘Did.'

‘Yes, of course.'

A shrug. ‘Not real close to Dad. I think I was a bit of a disappointment to him.'

‘In what way?'

‘You must know all this already, Uncle Phil.' DC Thornton shifting in his seat and a sideways glance; an amused curl of the lips from Hurley. That would be one of their angles of attack when it came.

‘For the record, Matthew.'

‘Sure, of course. As you know, Dad's got, had, a strong work ethic: successful businessman, pots of money, good provider. He saw me as a lazy, spoilt, useless bludger.'