Prime Cut (20 page)

‘So the next morning you wake up planning to do something about the body.’

Cato Kwong kept his voice and face neutral. Inscrutable, that was the word they always used. The Inscrutable Mr Kwong.

‘Yes, but he was gone.’ Guan Yu nodded, eager to please.

Jessica the interpreter looked as bright and crisp as it’s possible to be after a night in the Ravensthorpe Motel – situated a cosy thirty paces from the main bar of the Ravensthorpe Hotel.

They’d gone through the whole story again and Guan Yu was sticking to the script he’d produced yesterday, including the bulldust about slitting Hai Chen’s throat. Mark McGowan was playing out the rope and Guan Yu was winding it around his neck.

‘As you say, he was gone, but we’d like to take it a step at a time and get as much detail as possible.’ McGowan’s voice was soothing. They’d decided to switch roles for the day: McGowan good, Cato bad. They didn’t expect Guan to fall for it, they just fancied a bit of variety. ‘So what time did you wake up?’ McGowan pressed, gently inquisitive.

‘Five a.m.’

McGowan wrote himself a note. ‘Five. And where did you plan to bury him?’

‘He was gone,’ insisted Guan through Jessica Tan, who was clearly beginning to share his confusion as to why they were pursuing the matter of the burial that didn’t happen of the body that wasn’t there.

‘Yes, later he was gone. But you didn’t know that at the time. You had a plan to wake up at five and do something about Hai Chen before work started?’ McGowan smiled, encouragingly.

Guan Yu’s eyebrows creased in a frown then he shrugged. ‘Bury him.’

‘How. Where.’ Cato – curt, bad Cato.

‘With a spade, away in the bush behind the sheds.’

‘Show me.’

Cato drew a little mud map with the caravans and the sheds. He passed the notepad and pen across the table. Guan hesitated and then he chose a spot. X marked it.

‘Just you? Or did you have help?’ Cato keeping his gaze cold.

‘He was gone. We did not do it.’ Guan Yu, and Jessica interpreting his exasperation.

‘We?’ snapped Cato.

‘Me,’ said Guan Yu.

McGowan changed tack slightly. ‘So what were your thoughts when you saw the body was gone?’

‘What?’

‘What did you think? Did you think it was strange? Did you look for it? Did you ask your friends if they’d seen it anywhere?’

McGowan and that encouraging smile again. Cato was beginning to warm to him.

So was Guan Yu; he produced a look of shared bewilderment, bringing DC Mark McGowan into his confidence. ‘Yes, very strange, I thought to myself, how can this be? I looked around the area but nothing.’ He opened his eyes wide and lifted his palms to illustrate his words, Jessica the interpreter aping the gesture.

‘Weird.’ McGowan shook his head slowly, sympathetically. ‘And then you just had your breakfast and sat and waited for the work bus to arrive, yeah?’

Guan Yu nodded and added a ‘Yes’ for the recording.

‘And did you think about it anymore? Where it could have gone? Who might have taken Chen’s dead body?’ said McGowan.

Guan shrugged. ‘Mystery.’

‘Yes, sure is. And what about Mr Grant, Travis, he didn’t ask where Chen was?’

Guan shook his head emphatically.

Cato leaned in close across the table and spoke low and menacing. ‘Bullshit. All bullshit. Now let’s try again. This time I want the truth.’

Guan waited for Jessica Tan to translate even though it was clear that he already understood.

Cato tapped his finger on the manila file in front of him. ‘Maybe I need to explain to you. We have the head and body of Hai Chen. We have done medical tests. We know he was not stabbed, he was shot. So tell me where you put the gun after you killed him.’

As Jessica translated, Guan Yu’s face changed to genuine bewilderment and now fear.

‘Gun? No. No gun.’

‘Bingo.’

Lara Sumich flipped shut her mobile. DI Hutchens checked his watch, gritted his teeth, and gestured for her to continue their rudely interrupted conversation. Lara took a sip of herbal tea and smiled appreciatively like they had all morning to chat. Was she deliberately winding him up or what?

‘That was OCU,’ she said.

The intelligence section of the Organised Crime Unit in Perth had just joined some dots between Justin Woodward and Freddy Bataam aka Freddy Sudhyono aka Riri Yusala. Admittedly the dots were faint and a bit scattered, based on grudge-bearing dobbers, scuttlebutt, and supposition. But wasn’t that the basis of most intelligence? Countries had gone to war on less and in police work there was no such thing as coincidence. It seems Freddy Etcetera kept very bad company in skanky-druggie land, continually running up debts and getting on the wrong side of the wrong people. He should really have been picked up and deported as an overstayer but he kept on being useful to the OCU; apparently he dobbed at the drop of a hat. What with the dobbing and the drug debts he obviously liked living dangerously. OCU had him down as a friend of a friend of a friend of Woodward’s.

Hutchens frowned. On its own the intel was less than impressive
but taken as part of a bigger picture it was, well, a bit better. Stay positive.

‘The case against his nibs is building nicely,’ he murmured. ‘Keep digging Lara. Go fetch.’

Hutchens had spent most of the morning snarling down the phone at reporters who seemed more interested in the tasering of a little brat than the murder of a cop. Lara dismissed, he got back into the swing of his bad temper.

‘Where’s Tess Maguire?’ he barked.

Greg Fisher hovered uncertainly near the whiteboard with a sheaf of papers. He’d been drafted in as a dogsbody. ‘She’s at home, sir. Apparently you told her...’

‘Get her in here. Now.’

Greg Fisher picked up a phone.

DS Duncan Goldflam popped his head around the door. ‘Something you need to see, boss.’

Lara Sumich glanced over her shoulder.

‘What now?’ Hutchens growled.

‘I think you’ll like it.’

Goldflam winked at his boss and crooked his finger. It was the kind of thing you only dared do if you’d worked with Hutchens for long enough and knew him well enough. Goldflam ticked both boxes. Hutchens followed him outside. They clumped up the three steps into the forensics van.

Goldflam closed the door and lowered his voice. ‘We’ve got a match.’

‘A match of what, for fuck’s sake.’

‘Jim Buckley’s hair on the jeans Woodward was wearing the night of the murder.’

‘I thought you’d already run all those tests on day one?’

‘We went over them again in case we missed anything. After we found the drug traces it just seemed worth doing a due diligence.’

Hutchens studied Goldflam and his little band of eager beavers for a moment.

‘Bingo,’ he said approvingly. Tess Maguire nodded at RSL Russell at his usual table outside the
general store. He looked through her like she was a wisp of smoke and returned to studying the day’s
West Australian,
RSL raffle tickets and collecting tin temporarily demoted while he caught up on the news of the world. Tess shook her head and smiled to herself. Grumpy old bugger. She wondered how long she’d have to live in town before he acknowledged her existence. In the shop she picked up some milk, bread, tea bags and filter coffee. The latter a sop to Cato, she was an instant girl from way back. Pandering to Cato the coffee snob? Why? She shrugged to herself and got a few funny looks in the checkout queue. Shrugging to yourself, that was only a short step to talking to yourself. At the checkout, the operator, a gravelly voiced, hard-faced woman, beamed at her.

‘Morning Tess, how ya goin?’

Tess was taken aback, she almost looked behind her in case there was another Tess hiding back there. The checkout woman was usually a female version of RSL Russell – not the effusive type.

‘Good thanks, you?’

‘Good yeah.’

Tess did some detective work and checked out the badge on the woman’s uniform. It said Margie; it meant nothing.

‘Great.’

Tess nodded and beamed, packing her things into a shopping bag. Margie gave Tess her change and winked. Tess wasn’t sure what to do so she winked back.

‘See ya darl,’ said Margie brightly.

Tess’s mobile trilled: Greg Fisher.

‘DI Hutchens wants to see you.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. Urgent.’

‘Okay. Won’t be long.’ Tess closed her phone, the swim and the sea lion already ebbing into the distance.

As she dropped her shopping bag into the car boot a silver Prado screeched to a halt in the angle-park next to her. The driver-side door slammed shut on a fug of cigarette smoke. In the back seat was Jai Stevenson, looking sorry for himself.

‘You fucking animal.’ Kerry Stevenson planted herself in front
of Tess.

‘Hi Kerry,’ said Tess.

‘You could have killed him.’

It had been a while since there’d been a stand-up row in Veal Street. The handful of shoppers and passers-by had a ringside seat and were not even pretending not to stickybeak. Tess’s new best mate Margie had stepped outside for a smoko. Even RSL Russell had ventured out from behind his card table and stood beside Margie, arms folded. Tess thought she detected a glint in his eye.

‘This probably isn’t the time or place, Kerry.’

‘Bit too public for ya,’ she growled. ‘Prefer to torture ya kids in private?’

Tess pushed past and got into her car.

‘You haven’t heard the last of this,’ snarled Kerry.

A nicotine-yellowed finger prodded Tess’s driver-side window. While his mum continued raving, Tess could see Jai in the back seat with his little Gollum smile. As Tess crunched her car into gear, RSL Russell winked at her. Did he really just do that? Then Margie the checkout chick gave a thumbs-up, mimed tasering Russell beside her, crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue, grinned and gave the thumbs-up sign again. Tess was finally accepted in Hopetoun. She looked up into the Prado. Jai’s smile had evaporated.

Stuart Miller tapped Greg Fisher on the shoulder.

‘Got a moment?’

The young copper didn’t seem too impressed at the physical contact. ‘What can I do for you, sir?’

Miller offered his hand. ‘Stuart.’

Greg Fisher gave his name and shook the hand. ‘Yes, Stuart?’

‘Jim Buckley, he was my brother-in-law.’

Fisher visibly relaxed. ‘Oh right, yeah. Sorry about Jim. Terrible thing to happen, terrible.’

‘What exactly did happen?’

‘Maybe you should have a chat with the senior officer, Inspector Hutchens, he’s just inside.’

‘Yeah I will, sure, but he’ll be a very busy man. Maybe you could just give me the bottled version.’

Stuart Miller smiled reassuringly, Greg Fisher didn’t buy it.

‘Do you have any ID, Mr...?’

‘Miller.’ He showed him some.

‘Thanks Stuart. Look I really think the best person for you to talk to is Inspector Hutchens.’ Greg Fisher gestured towards the door of the town hall.

Miller sighed, smiled and followed him.

The young cop opened the door and gallantly waved him through. ‘You know, Stuart, that accent of yours. You sound just like a bloke I was talking to recently.’

‘If he’s willingly confessing to murder does it matter if the story’s a bit rubbery? Maybe he just needs his memory jogged.’ Mark McGowan slurped on a strawberry milkshake.

Cato didn’t want to tell him he’d been down that path before and been burnt. Badly. McGowan probably knew anyway. ‘It needs to add up in court or we’ll look like idiots. Or worse...’

They were taking a break in the Country Cafe down the hill from Ravensthorpe cop shop. Cato had ordered a pot of tea; he was increasingly wary of coffee in these parts. McGowan had the bright pink milkshake and an energy bar. Must be a gym thing, mused Cato. Jessica Tan was getting increasingly perplexed by the turn of events. She had advised Guan Yu urgently that he really should go no further without a proper lawyer. He had readily agreed. One was on the way now from Albany, due by midafternoon.

‘So what’s it all about? What’s he playing at?’ McGowan slurped some more pink stuff up through a long black straw.

Cato didn’t know. Nothing made sense. On the verge of a confession, an easy win in the Flipper case had suddenly been snatched away from him. Maybe that was the point: it wasn’t meant to be an easy win. Karma – one of Jane’s favourite concepts. Socalled easy wins had been his undoing in the past. Now he had to pay in some way.

‘He’s either making it up as he goes along...’

‘Yes but why?’ said McGowan.

‘He wants the attention? It wouldn’t be the first time some sad bastard has copped to a murder he didn’t commit.’

McGowan’s eyes met Cato’s briefly then moved on to a faraway spot out the window.

‘Or he’s covering for somebody else?’ McGowan crumpled up his energy-bar wrapper.

‘Same question you raised. Why?’ Cato squeezed the last bit of flavour out of his tea bag.

‘He owes somebody? He’s scared of them?’

‘Scared enough that he prefers a long prison stretch for murder?’

McGowan noisily drained the last of his milkshake. ‘As you said, he wouldn’t be the first sad bastard to see it that way.’

DI Mick Hutchens shook Stuart Miller’s hand and offered condolences and reassurances about how they were doing everything they possibly could and yes they would follow up on that coldcase connection with SA Homicide, blah blah blah. He could see that Miller didn’t believe a single word of it. Miller had explained how Jim Buckley had called him at midnight on Friday convinced that he’d seen this Davey Arthurs aka Derek Whatsisname in the pub. Within an hour he was dead.

Hutchens nodded his head patiently. ‘Yes, yes maybe but Jim had been drinking heavily, he couldn’t be sure if it was your man. If he was then why didn’t he challenge the guy? He didn’t. So surely this Davey Arthurs bloke, if it was him, would have no reason to attack him, would he?’

Miller shifted his balance to the other foot and exhaled sharply. Not happy. Hutchens was on a roll.

‘At the most it’s a coincidence, Stuart. But my money is on mistaken identity.’ He made a show of taking Miller into his confidence, two old cops together. ‘Between you and me, mate, we’ve got someone in the frame for this. We just need to tidy up some loose
ends. Give us a few days.’