Prime Cut (15 page)

Jenny then looked up the war record of William John Arthurs. The Imperial War Museum database listed him as a lieutenant in the Durham Light Infantry, as befits the son of a bank manager – seeing action at Dunkirk, North Africa and the Salerno landings in Italy. Medical discharge February 1945, a few months before the war ended. Severe depression and catatonia. Read shell shock. Davey’s dad probably wouldn’t have been in any fit state to hold down a responsible, better paying job; even labourer in the shipyards would have been a bit of a stretch for Billy Arthurs. Siring Davey and Andy must have been about all he was good for. For some reason his middle-class family had abandoned him to his fate; nobody had invited the homecoming hero back to the big house by the beach in Seaburn to recuperate from his wartime traumas. Charming.

Jenny Miller sat back, a triumphant gleam in her eye. ‘That what you’re after?’

Miller nodded, impressed. ‘All very interesting but what does it have to do with his son Davey turning into a nasty, vicious little bastard?’

Jenny stretched and yawned. ‘Yeah well I’ve had enough of this, I’ve got some marking to do.’ Her hand hovered over the mouse, she winked and dug her elbow playfully into his side. ‘Unless you want to take one of your wee blue pills and look at some porn?’

Guan Yu stepped out of his caravan into the half-light of dawn. He shivered and cupped both hands to a mug of tea and lifted it to his mouth. The high cirrus clouds to the east were streaked pink and red with the approaching sunrise, fanning out across a sky bigger than he could ever get used to. This was the best time of day, when he could have a few moments to himself to relish the peace, quiet, clean air and space: so much space. He slapped his hand three times loudly against the side of the van. Three workmates inside, slow to get out of bed. With four adults snoring and farting in a van barely big enough for two, the best place to be was outside in the fresh morning air.

The caravan was in a clearing in bush on the south-eastern corner of a huge and neglected block they called Paddy’s Field. Guan Yu had no idea who Paddy was. As far as he knew, this land was owned by their employer but they never saw him: big man, too busy. Too busy to look after his land and his animals, thought Guan, as a handful of bony, bedraggled sheep bleated pathetically from a respectful distance. He slapped his hand on the van three more times. The sheep skedaddled, his workmates stirred, cursed, and farted. One began to clear his nose and throat and the others joined in the morning chorus. Guan swilled the dregs of his tea around the bottom of the cup and flicked it towards a small pile of mallee roots. It reminded him to restock for the evening fire.

Twenty metres away, another caravan door was flung open and more sleepy Chinese faces emerged as the sun broke the distant tree line. They added to the dawn chorus, now a snorting cacophony. Three men in a van meant for four; they had a bit more room to move now that Chen was gone. Across the paddock the minibus came into view. Bumping over the rutted track it creaked to a stop
between the two caravans. The window rolled down and Travis Grant poked his head out, cigarette in the corner of his mouth and reflector sunglasses perched up top.

‘Wakey-wakey. Chop-chop. Ready go workee?’

Guan Yu nodded and smiled like he was expected to. He wondered why Mr Grant spoke such strange English and never asked where Chen was. Ever.

Justin Woodward could stew for another half-hour at least. DI Mick Hutchens had commandeered Sergeant Bernie Tilbrook’s office at Ravensthorpe cop shop. That hadn’t gone down well but Hutchens couldn’t give a shit. He had the preliminary autopsy results back from Dr Harry Lewis who’d delayed his examination of Buckley until late Sunday morning. It hadn’t done much for Hutchens’ mood; he’d also just heard that the extra officers and the mobile command post were to be delayed another twenty-four hours. Hutchens held his tongue during the post-mortem examination. He’d nail the jumped-up little twerp later, once the job was done.

Jim Buckley had not one but two major head wounds. It looked like the killer had first bounced the rock off the back of Buckley’s skull from a short distance behind, maybe less than a metre, to incapacitate him. Once he’d gone down they, he, or she, had followed up by dropping it on his head again. In fact it was done with such force the second time that it must have been lifted high and hurled down. That was the one that killed him. Hardly elegant but certainly effective, was Lewis’s redundant observation. There had been no apparent struggle, no apparent physical contact between victim and assailant. But there was every chance the killer had been splashed with Jim Buckley’s blood.

Buckley had a bellyful of steak, chips, salad, bourbon and Coke. No unusual drugs in the system – he was on medication for blood pressure and cholesterol. One thing they hadn’t expected and which further analysis confirmed – Buckley’s guts were riddled with cancer. If he hadn’t been murdered he probably would have been dead in about six months anyway. Dr Lewis had no objection
to the body being released to the family. Hutchens could see no particular merit in having Buckley looked over again by a Perth boffin; they had the relevant organ, blood and tissue samples anyway. Buckley’s oldest son had been notified. Hutchens didn’t want to think too much about what the family was going through right now. He knew they needed to be able to bury or cremate the poor bastard and he wasn’t about to stand in their way. The Commissioner too was keen for this to be expedited; a cop’s funeral was always a good opportunity to consolidate hearts and minds and budget submissions.

Forensics hadn’t been able to get much from the locus. Rain and other contamination had turned prints, fibres, and any other potentially useful particles into a murky broth, according to Hutchens’ officer-in-charge DS Duncan Goldflam. The motel room also had too many prints and fibres from previous occupants and staff for that avenue to be really worth pursuing, although diligence dictated that he must. Buckley’s belongings and laptop were examined but nothing jumped out. Anything that put Justin Woodward in the frame would do nicely but so far, nada. All they had on the pub CCTV was Buckley at the bar – drinking, eating, staring at the TV, staring at the barmaid, staring into space, and occasionally sharing a few casual words with people over the course of the evening. Buckley was seen leaving and returning mid evening for about a ten-minute interval. Justin Woodward and girlfriend were seen leaving early, abandoning half-finished drinks. The alert on the white turbo ute owned by the probable Woodward associates – the Indonesian and his two sleazy mates – had produced zilch. The phone records had thrown up Woodward, which was a plus, but the only other numbers seemed to be a doctors surgery and another private number, a family member in Busselton. All in all, Hutchens knew it, they had nothing.

Justin Woodward knew it too, as did his lawyer. He’d flown in yesterday on the late afternoon flight from Perth. Henry Hurley: short, pixie-faced and surprisingly muscular. He worked out to make up for the height thing. Hooray Henry. A city brief well known to Hutchens and his colleagues from Major Crime. He normally
represented the gangsters and bikies and didn’t come cheap; Justin’s daddy was paying. Too busy to be able to come down himself to support his son, he was nevertheless pulling out all the stops, and his chequebook, to help. Word had already drifted back to Hutchens from higher in the police food chain that entrepreneur and socialite Patrick Woodward was using his connections, chewing ears in the police, legal, and political fraternities about harassment of his son. The message to Hutchens was charge him or release him by day’s end. Henry Hurley had already voiced his outrage at the rough and unwarranted treatment meted out to his client and let them know he’d be making it official. Hutchens nodded and smiled at the little tosspot. He didn’t give two hoots.

Henry and Justin sat on one side of the table, Hutchens and Lara Sumich on the other. Lara knew the score, the lack-of-compellingevidence thing; she looked like she wanted to be somewhere else. Hutchens introduced everybody and announced the time and date for the record. He knew this was probably the last run with Woodward and they’d have to let him go unless somebody crashed into the room with a smoking gun or he broke down and confessed all; neither were likely. Woodward hadn’t volunteered any more since Sunday morning when he’d decided he wanted his lawyer. Before that he seemed to be cool, relaxed and have an answer for everything he could be bothered responding to. Everything but the phone call between Buckley’s mobile and his at around four on Friday – that had rattled him. Hutchens would bet his overtime that Hurley and Justin would have plugged that hole by now. It didn’t stop him trying though. After a leisurely stroll through the preliminaries and over old ground to make sure Woodward was sticking to his story – and he was – Hutchens got around to the nub of the issue.

‘The phone call, Justin, the one from the deceased to you on Friday afternoon; we still need to get to the bottom of that.’

Woodward nodded helpfully, he’d remembered now. ‘Yes, Mr Buckley did phone me...’ Mr Buckley, nice touch. ‘He said that he’d mislaid something when he was searching the van. A bunch of keys.’

‘And you spent...’ Hutchens made a show of checking his notes, ‘three minutes and forty-six seconds talking about that?’

‘Yes, he described them to me and we were trying to picture where he might have left them.’

‘Describe them for me.’

An eyelid flicker, the lie had become unnecessarily elaborate. Time to backtrack. ‘I didn’t really take it in to tell you the truth. I was getting ready to go out with Angelique. We talked about where he’d been looking, where he might have put them down. But I hadn’t noticed anything when I locked up that day.’

‘And that was it?’

‘That was it.’

‘Why couldn’t you tell me this yesterday?’

Justin nodded again, ready, willing and eager. ‘I’d had a terrible night’s sleep. I didn’t get to bed until after three, as you’ll know.’ A glance this time for Lara, implicating her. ‘I’d just reached my limit, the end of my tether. Sleep deprivation. Does terrible things to you, you know.’

Henry Hurley patted his client’s hand consolingly and served DI Hutchens a half-reproachful, half-pitying look. ‘Was there anything else you wanted us to help you with, Inspector?

The coach rolled into the roadhouse forecourt and pulled up at the Dunstan Industries demountable where a fleet of minibuses waited to whisk groups of contract workers away to various sites. The brakes hissed and the doors eased open. A parade of sleepy men and women in fluoro overalls emerged into the sunshine. Tess Maguire checked her watch, 8.30. Most of the coach passengers had already been awake for at least two hours for the drive from Esperance to Ravensthorpe and were only just about to start their ten-hour shift now. After another sleep-deprived night of her own, Tess knew exactly how they felt. She was in her private car, an eight year old grey Subaru, and out of uniform; this wasn’t strictly police business. Then he appeared in the coach doorway.

John Djukic. The mullet had gone but his hair was still the same
rust colour. He was clean-shaven. He’d put on a bit of weight. Drivein drive-out work patterns took as much of a toll on the body as flyin fly-out, maybe more. Roadhouse food and work-camp life takes no prisoners. Djukic and his band of brothers, and a few sisters, trudged past within a few metres of Tess’s Subaru. She didn’t make any attempt to hide herself. She almost willed him to notice her. He didn’t. He walked straight past and boarded a minibus which, according to the handwritten card in the windscreen, was headed out to the mine. The minibuses buzzed away with their cargoes of worker bees. Tess realised she’d forgotten to breathe for the last minute or so. She opened her window and gulped deeply of the country air which was bitter with the blue smoke of hastily snatched cigarettes and crackling with dust from the swirl of vehicles. She gunned her engine and followed the convoy down the road.

It was the strangest feeling. Midmorning on a dusty unsealed road just outside of Hopetoun. A still and steadily warming day. Cato Kwong shielded his eyes from the glare of the mini-cluster of white demountables marking the entrance to what would be Barren Pastures housing estate by the end of the year. No sea views here but the new residents would be able to look forward to glorious sunsets over the brooding Barren Ranges a few kilometres west. East and north were acres and acres of canola as far as the eye could see. South, the creeping expanse of Hopetoun reaching towards the peace and serenity of country life, as fetchingly represented on the advertising hoarding which reared above them:
Live the dream in Barren Pastures.

Very strange: sixteen Chinamen summoned to line up before Cato Kwong. He imagined it from a bird’s-eye view. It could have been the stage for a set-piece kung fu spectacle except they were all wearing blue and yellow fluoro overalls and looked not ready for battle but totally bemused by his appearance and role, Zen Master Kwong. The initial low murmur as they were herded into the Barren Pastures car park had subsided. Now they were just watching and waiting.

Greg Fisher accompanied Cato today. Tess had phoned to say she had some other business first thing. Fisher seemed to know the foreman, Travis Grant, he nudged Grant who then gave Cato the nod to proceed. Cato started reading aloud the list of names. There were chuckles and sniggers at some of the pronunciations but while he might not have landed a job as a newsreader at SBS, he was a vast improvement on Travis Grant’s pidgin-for-deaf-foreigners. As each recognised his name he stepped forward, waved, smiled, and nodded like he was being introduced for the hundred metres backstroke final.

‘Hai Chen.’

Nothing. Nobody stepped forward.

Cato read it again. Still nothing. Some of the Chinese coughed or looked anywhere but at Cato.

Travis Grant lifted his reflector sunnies and looked around a bit. ‘Anyone seen Hai Chen? Hai Chen?’ Grant repeated loudly.

Nothing.

Cato decided to push on, get all the others ticked off, and then come back to that one. He continued with the names until the last of the men stepped forward. Cato studied the list again.

‘Hai Chen?’ he said uncertainly, then repeated it.

Travis Grant shrugged. ‘Must have done a runner. It happens.’

‘Where does he live?’

‘China?’

Cato fixed his gaze on Grant. ‘I’m not really in the mood for pissing around, mate. Take me to where he’s been living, this ... Hai Chen.’

Cato felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned. One of the Chinese was there, he took half a step back and bowed towards Cato. The face looked vaguely familiar, or was it just that they all looked the same to him? Then he remembered, day one in Hopetoun, the man in the phone booth on the main street.

‘Chen dead. I kill him.’

The man nodded eagerly and put his hands forward, fists clenched, wrists together. Cato wasn’t sure what to do. He hadn’t actually brought any handcuffs with him.