Bad Seed (48 page)

‘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 office? 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.'