Prime Cut (18 page)

Mark McGowan frowned. ‘Fifteen? But there are only seven or eight people in the Paddy’s Field vans. Where are the rest?’

Jessica translated. ‘They live in two more vans at Barren Pastures.’

McGowan did the mental maths. Seven hundred and fifty a week on top of Chen’s own wages. He whistled softly. ‘Not bad.’

Cato gazed at Guan Yu. ‘How much do you make in a week?’

‘Five hundred.’ Guan nodded, sticking his thumbs up. ‘Good, yes?’

McGowan snorted. ‘McBurger’s wages.’

Cato glared at him and turned back to look across the table. ‘So you were giving Chen ten per cent every week?’

‘Yes.’

‘Go on. Thursday night was pay night for Mr Chen.’

‘I did not have the money.’ Guan Yu looked down at the table.

‘Why not?’ McGowan again, sitting back low in his chair, arms folded.

‘I don’t know.’

‘What kind of answer is that?’ McGowan snapped.

‘I needed it for my family.’ Guan’s eyes were filling up.

Cato leaned forward, a picture of sympathy. ‘So what happened then?’

‘He chastised me, loudly, in front of the other men. He slapped me.’

Jessica Tan finished the translation by mimicking the slapping gesture they had all seen already from Guan. The clock ticked on the wall. A phone rang in an office nearby. Cato waited for Guan’s breathing to steady.

‘What next?’

‘He was walking away from me, laughing and insulting me, waving his money in the air...’

Jessica Tan flicked her wrist back and forth, a loads-a-money gesture. Guan Yu said something and flicked his finger across his throat. Jessica Tan provided the translation.

‘I cut his throat. I bled the fat greedy pig.’

Tess Maguire stood outside at the window for a moment and surveyed the scene. Melissa lay on the couch staring at
Deal or No Deal
without seeming to take any of it in. The TV volume was way up, it wasn’t like it was a quiet show anyway, and Tess had heard it halfway down the street. iPod wires trailed out of her daughter’s ears and four bottles of Lemon Ruski lay dead on the floor at her feet. The kitchen screen door rattled open.

‘What the hell is this?’

Tess was home relatively early by her standards. It had been a short if tumultuous day. She’d stalked Johnno Djukic; tasered an eleven year old and probably would face assault charges from his parents; been carpeted by some fuckwit from Albany and ordered to take the rest of the week off and, quote, ‘Sort your bloody self out.’ They seemed to think she had a problem with anger management, that maybe she wasn’t completely rehabilitated, would perhaps benefit from some more counselling. Anger-fucking-management? Dickheads. She looked over at her daughter. Now this.

‘Turn that crap off. Put those bottles in the bin. Have a shower and smarten your bloody self up. I want you back out here in ten minutes. We need to talk.’

Melissa rolled her eyes. Didn’t bother moving anything else.

Tess tried again, louder. ‘Did you hear me?’

Not even a shrug.

Tess stormed over and stabbed the TV off then turned on her daughter who was busily feigning boredom and indifference. Tess wanted to punch her. She leaned forward with her hand out, Melissa flinched. Tess yanked the earphones out, grabbed the alcopop bottles and flung them in the bin.

‘Okay we’ll talk here. Now, what’s going on?’

‘Nothing. Leave me alone.’

Melissa finally moved. She jumped up and stormed into her room, slamming the door behind her.

‘Melissa. Come back here.’

A shriek, sounding like it emanated from the depths of hell, came from the other side of the door.

‘Fuck. Off.’

The door flew open and Tess was astride her daughter on the bed, face crimson with rage, head roaring and a hot mist fogging her vision. One hand was bunched around Melissa’s collar, the other pulled back in a fist.

‘Mum!’ Melissa’s eyes were wide with terror. ‘Mum, stop!’

The spell broke. Tess looked down at the terrified face below her. She lowered her fist. ‘Oh God, Mel. I’m so sorry.’

Melissa’s face crumpled. She looked about four. ‘Get out. Please just get out.’

Tess got up and left, utterly desolate; not knowing how to come back from what she’d just done.

‘Show me how you cut him. Which hand was the knife in?’

Guan Yu waited for the translation, he looked at Jessica Tan, seeking guidance. She flicked her hands uncertainly, she was an interpreter not a lawyer. Cato stood up and got Mark McGowan to join him. He stood behind McGowan, reaching around with his left arm to secure him, then bringing his right hand across the neck in a slicing motion.

‘Like this?’

Guan Yu shook his head. Cato released his victim.

‘So show me. Here. Mr McGowan is Hai Chen.’

McGowan crooked his finger at Guan encouragingly. Guan Yu rose to his feet giggling nervously and went to stand behind McGowan. Cato gestured for him to proceed. The self-confessed killer stepped forward reaching with his left hand to grab McGowan by the hair, gently.

‘This man very big, tall, Chen not so big.’ Guan let go of
McGowan’s head.

Cato asked his colleague to crouch a little. ‘Better?’

Guan nodded, ‘Yes, a little more please. Good.’

Guan stepped forward again, grabbing the back of McGowan’s head with his left hand and driving the thumb side of his right fist into a spot just below McGowan’s right ear. He mimicked the withdrawal of the blade and another stabbing motion into the front of the neck and a wrench back towards the original wound. If Guan Yu was having any scary flashbacks to that night of blood and terror, his face didn’t reveal anything: he could have been slicing Peking duck on a slow night in Chinatown. Mark McGowan crossed his eyes, clutched his throat and poked his tongue out in schlock horror. Jessica Tan couldn’t suppress a nervous titter. Guan Yu joined in the macabre mirthfest with a high-pitched hee-hee of his own. Cato calmed them all down. He kept Guan and McGowan in their positions.

‘What happened then?’

‘He fell down. Dead.’ Guan Yu was coping remarkably well without the interpreter.

‘How do you know he was dead?’

This time Guan waited for Jessica to translate, and Cato waited for the response.

‘Maybe he didn’t die immediately. He made noises. Gurgling. Moaning. Maybe it took a few minutes. A lot of blood.’

‘Did anybody see this?’ McGowan, with pen poised over his notepad.

‘Of course, everyone must have seen it.’

‘What did they do?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?’ Cato double-checked with Jessica.

‘Nothing.’

‘Nobody tried to help him?’

‘No,’ said Jessica for Guan Yu. ‘We all hated him, we all watched him die.’
Cato Kwong checked his watch. It was dark outside now, just the wrong side of eight. It was clear that everyone was getting tired. Jessica Tan’s translations were taking longer, brains were seizing up, McGowan was yawning for Australia. An infusion of the disgusting coffee from the cafe down the road had done nothing for anyone’s spirits or tastebuds. Pushing on would be counterproductive but Cato was desperate to know, at least in brief, how Hai Chen went from being dead in a field twenty kilometres inland to dismembered flotsam on Hopetoun beach. As far as he could tell, Guan Yu appeared not to have any ready access to a car, never mind a boat. Cato smiled encouragingly at Guan and the interpreter.

‘We will take a break very soon. Just a few more questions for today.’

They nodded for Cato to proceed. Guan’s nod looked less enthusiastic, he seemed to be getting bored with confessing to murder.

‘So you watched him die. What happened to the body after that?’

‘We covered him with a...’ Guan and the interpreter struggled for the word, ‘a tent sheet...’

‘A tarpaulin?’

‘Yes, tarpaulin, and we left him for the night. I was going to bury him in the morning.’

‘So you left it overnight. Covered in tarpaulin?’ Nods. ‘Then what, you went to sleep?’

‘No, we sat around the fire and drank whisky. Lots of whisky.’

As you would, with a dead body a few feet away, thought Cato.

‘And in the morning you buried the body?’

Cato tensed; if the answer was yes then how did it end up on the beach? Guan Yu shook his head. Did he magically conjure up a fourwheel drive and a boat? Did somebody help him? Was Cato on the verge of wrapping up the mystery of Flipper?

‘No.’

‘No? Why not?’

Guan Yu scratched his neck and gave a little embarrassed cough. ‘Hai Chen was gone.’
No room at the inn. Stuart Miller smiled wearily at Pam the Fitzgerald River Motel receptionist and flicked his wallet shut. He couldn’t believe how long the drive had been: hours and hours, nearly nine of them in fact. Admittedly he had got lost on the back roads of the southern wheatbelt taking what – he had been assured by the guy at the Albany Highway roadhouse – would be a really good short cut. It had turned out to be a winding, sign-less, kangaroo-strewn nightmare. Now he was here, it was dark and he was exhausted and hungry. The motel was full and the cafe was shut. Welcome to Hopetoun.

Jenny had taken the call late last night, Sunday. It was from her nephew Tony, Jim Buckley’s eldest. Apparently it had taken them the whole weekend to recover enough from their news to remember to phone their Auntie Jenny. Just in case she wanted to know, Tony had said. No wonder Jim hadn’t been answering his phone and text messages. The funeral was a few days off yet. At this point they hadn’t even released Jim’s body. Apparently it had happened very late Friday night or very early Saturday morning. Miller already knew it to be the latter. Jim had been talking to him on the phone at just after midnight; voice slurred, wind noise in the background, and water. Waves? How much longer did he have to live then? A minute? An hour?

Miller started the car, a new model Statesman, and pulled out of the motel car park. He headed for where he thought the sea might be. Opposite the pub he could see and hear waves breaking on the beach, a milky-white froth in the moonlight. Off left from the main street, the slip-road led down to a wide groyne lit at the far end by a single lamppost. The pub looked empty, on the verge of closing. The lights were off in the cafe next door. He drove on to the groyne, crunching across the rutted, potholed gravel, and came to a stop under the light near the small wooden jetty.

He knew he’d agreed to pass on any developments to Detective Tim Delaney but somehow he hadn’t got around to it yet. He felt a tad guilty, particularly as Delaney had come good and phoned through with an answer to something that had been nagging him. How Arthurs, a simple shipyard worker from Sunderland,
had managed to get a new ID to travel abroad. Delaney had the Immigration Department run a check on incoming passengers circa 1973. No computerisation back then but a visa record in Sydney did flag an overstayer. Andrew Arthurs, Sunderland, UK. Davey’s younger brother, same height and as alike as made no difference. Davey had used his little brother’s passport, simple.

‘So he’s not The Jackal,’ said Delaney. ‘He’s just a nasty, scabby, opportunistic little mongrel.’

‘True enough,’ Miller had concurred, ‘but both still have a lot of animal cunning.’

Would he ever let Delaney know he had a red hot lead on the south coast? Maybe. Maybe not. Miller still harboured the fantasy of bringing Arthurs in, the Mountie getting his man. He reclined his seat, grabbed his jacket from the back as a makeshift blanket, and tried to sleep.

Cato Kwong knew he probably shouldn’t be doing this, but he couldn’t sleep and the urge was too strong. The town hall Major Incident Room, as it was now called, stood squat, silent, and dark. Thin moonlight filtered through the roadside gums and a soft breeze tugged at their leaves. There was not a soul about. Cato slid a key into the lock on the flimsy plywood door and turned the handle. It was a spare that McGowan, as part of the official team, had been issued. On the drive back from Ravensthorpe, Cato convinced him he’d left his own official-issue key at the lockup and just wanted to access the database to check something out. The younger man had yawned, accepted the lie, and handed over the key.

The door opened with a rusty squeak, he left the lights off. He knew where he was going and made immediately for the far corner of the hall. He sat down on the stool and lifted the lid. The peeling white gloss coat on the old upright piano seemed to glow in the moonlight beaming through the windows. Cato pressed down on the pedals; the left one was particularly stiff. He ran his fingers up and down the keyboard. Most of the lower register was out of tune. That would make for a very dodgy left-hand arpeggio.

He started playing – Chopin’s Nocturne in B-Flat Minor, Opus 9, Number 1. It was one of his three selected pieces for the performance exam he sat when he was fifteen, still young enough to be a child prodigy although pushing it a bit. The other two were Bartok’s gypsy songs and a Schubert impromptu. But the Chopin was his favourite: haunting, melancholic and passionate, according to his piano teacher Miss Grabowski who, to her eternal chagrin, was born a hundred years too late and lived in Fremantle instead of Warsaw. She was old-school and spat derisively when he mentioned that most of his little friends were learning by the Suzuki method.

‘We are artistes, Philip; we don’t do painting by numbers here.’

After five years with her, his knees had grown hairy, his thighs muscular, his hands big yet still nimble enough to skip through the cantilena.

He played it now, cascading down through the keys. After tripping over it so many times and with Miss Grabowski’s trembling hand lingering on his to guide him, she had finally announced one day, with perspiration on her upper lip and an accent she’d conjured from her family tree, ‘You are ready.’

But in the examination room under the steely gaze of the Board he realised he wasn’t. He froze. So many of his ‘little friends’ in their Suzuki classes had sailed through this moment because regular performances before an audience were a staple of their teaching. He stumbled over the Chopin cantilena and killed his child-prodigy prospects stone dead. Humiliated, head boiling and eyes brimming, he’d stormed out of the examination room and flung his music books into the nearest bin. Out on the street the first thing he saw was two cops chasing a young guy down the road before beating the crap out of him in broad daylight. That’s when Philip Kwong realised what he wanted to do with his life.

It had taken a long time for him to retrieve the joy of playing piano for himself, the calming meditative pleasure. And he’d since learned that there was more to policing than what he’d witnessed after his piano exam. Failed child prodigy, failed police poster boy
and failed ace detective. He brought the nocturne to a close with a clunk on the off-key low notes. Cato Kwong was relatively calm and at peace with the world. The applause from the shadows scared the living daylights out of him. Lara Sumich sauntered through a shaft of moonlight with a playful half-smile and sat down on the stool next to him.

‘Bravo,’ she whispered.

Her shoulder brushed his, so did her hip, thigh, and knee. Her perfume was discreet, musky and probably very expensive. The moonlight on her neck revealed a sheen of perspiration. Come to think of it the temperature did seem to have risen a touch.

‘How’s the case going?’ she inquired casually.

‘I’m thinking of finding a proper job. Maybe Cato the Carpenter.’

‘Elder or Younger?’

‘What?’

‘Isn’t that where you got it from? The ancient Roman lawmaker? I can’t remember whether it was Cato the Elder or Younger but one of them was a byword for incorruptibility.’

‘That education of yours was worth every cent.’

Lara pursed her lips. ‘Mind you he was also known as an uptight, austere bigot.’