Prime Cut (8 page)

Murder HQ. Friday, 8.00a.m. sharp. Cato wanted a quick catchup with everybody. He felt like yesterday was a bit of a wasted day; rousting the Snak-Attack boy and breaking up fights at the mine kept them all nicely occupied but didn’t get them any closer to solving the mystery of Flipper.

Cato had woken bright and early, determined to make progress. He wanted to chase up the missing Lieutenant Riri Yusala. Was he Flipper? He also wanted to do a bit of tree-shaking. Yesterday’s little visit to Justin’s coffee van might have been a distraction but it had also given him the idea. This was a small town – how hard could it be to set tongues wagging and see what happened? Who knew who, or what, might come scurrying out of the woodwork? Pam the All-Knowing All-Seeing All-Telling Receptionist was his best bet; he’d made a big show of being curt as he dropped his room key in on the way to breakfast. Clearly here was a man with a lot on his mind, a lot of secrets, and it had worked a treat. Pam hovered in her split role as receptionist and breakfast-server.

‘How are your inquiries progressing, Inspector?’

Cato appreciated the promotion. ‘Good, thanks.’

He’d laid on the absent-minded man-of-mystery thing with a trowel.

‘I hear there’s drugs involved. A syndicate.’ Pam enunciated each syllable of the last word in hushed breathless tones, relishing the ‘syn’ part.

Cato pretended to look alarmed that she knew so much. He glanced around the almost empty dining room and made a soothing, shushing movement with his hands.

Pam nodded knowingly. ‘Your colleague, will he be joining us for breakfast today?’

Cato made his expression unnaturally neutral. ‘Not sure, he’s making a few calls.’ He checked his watch. ‘Seven a.m. here.’

Cato looked like he was trying to calculate time zones. That was all Pam needed. It wasn’t just a drug syndicate; it was an International Drug Syndicate, and these weren’t just ordinary cops. She bustled away to get Cato his coffee. Cato smiled to himself, wondering how far it would spread around town by day’s end. The downside was that the rumour mill would probably also find its way back to the news media, something Hutchens specifically didn’t want right now. Cato was on a deadline; due to be shunted out by one of Hutchens’ puppets in a few days anyway, he figured the career-benefits of a quick result would hopefully outweigh Hutchens’ displeasure at his little game. He frowned. Quick results and little games, wasn’t that what got him into trouble in the first place?

A polite cough from Jim Buckley brought him back into the moment and back into the Murder Room. Cato noticed that Buckley still had a distracted look about him. Constable Greg Fisher reported on the trip to Mason and Starvation bays and the chat with Billy Mather, none of which had generated anything of real interest except for the tip about the grey nomads who’d passed through. When he got back to Hopetoun after the ruckus at the mine he’d spent the rest of the afternoon following up on said grey nomads. He struck lucky quickly. Security video footage from the Hopetoun general store fuel pumps showed a Britz van filling up the previous Saturday; that fitted Billy Mather’s time frame. Greg had noted the rego number and phoned the company.

‘That produced a hirer’s name and mobile contact: Mr Kevin Redmond from Newcastle, New South Wales, by this time plugged into a powered site in Esperance. Two hundred kilometres east along the coast,’ he added for the benefit of the city slickers.

Mr Redmond had sounded like a Pom. Greg Fisher observed that you couldn’t move for the bastards these days and Jim Buckley nodded sourly in agreement. Redmond confirmed that he and his wife had called through Starvation Bay last weekend and hadn’t noticed anything unusual. The other campervan had been hired by his wife’s sister and her husband, and Redmond doubted they’d
noticed anything either or it would have helped the flagging conversations in the evenings. Redmond had put his brother-in-law on the phone and he’d confirmed as much.

‘Except...’ teased Fisher.

‘Except what?’ said Cato impatiently.

‘On the first night, that’s last Thursday into Friday, he got up to take a piss. Prostate.’

‘Yes?’ Cato said.

‘At around 2.15a.m. – apparently he noticed the time on the microwave – he stepped outside to do the business and noticed some lights down near the boat ramp. Didn’t give it any further thought. Too busy trying to piss and get back to bed.’

Greg Fisher sat back beaming.

‘Late night lights on the boat ramp at Starvo,’ said Jim Buckley cupping his chin thoughtfully in his right fist. ‘That could be the turning point in this case.’

Greg Fisher nodded enthusiastically until he realised that Buckley was being sarcastic. Cato didn’t want the meeting to sink into oblivion just yet.

‘The old guy, the fisherman...’

‘Mather?’ offered Greg.

‘Yeah, he didn’t mention any lights?’

Greg shrugged. ‘Asleep? Bit deaf? Forgot?’

‘Maybe, or, for all you know, lying, or hiding something. Can you get back to him and double-check?’

Fisher blushed. ‘Sure.’

Fisher wrapped up his report and beat a hasty retreat. No, he hadn’t got around to checking out shipping movements yet but yes, he would get onto it now, talk to a few boaties around town, and get back to Mather about those lights.

Next it was Cato’s turn. He told them about the mispers list and the two of interest to him – Riri Yusala and, to a lesser extent, the closet Italian gay Carlo Donizetti. That raised a smirk from an otherwise dour Jim Buckley. There were contact numbers for the case officers assigned to the two mispers, one in Perth for Donizetti, and Yusala’s in Albany: DI Mick Hutchens’ turf. Cato would follow
up on that today. Tess Maguire met his eye. He couldn’t read the look, it was as if she hardly knew him. Private. Keep Out.

‘I’ll be following up on the mine fight,’ Tess said, ‘Talking to Kane Stevenson and some of those other names we took. I’ll be on that for most of the day.’

Tess’s expression challenged Cato to say it ain’t so. He didn’t. Jim Buckley asked her if she wanted him there for the Stevenson interview. She didn’t. He looked surprisingly disappointed.

Tess left for Ravensthorpe. Greg Fisher was already on the phone checking shipping. Cato gave Buckley the number for the Donizetti case officer, keeping Riri Yusala and the Albany office for himself. He rang the number.

‘Julie Silvestri, Albany Detectives.’

The voice at the other end of the phone sounded like it was being channelled through a soggy mattress. Cato introduced himself and told her what he wanted. She took a moment to find the case on her computer; Cato could hear the clicking of the keyboard and heavy mouth-breathing. Julie Silvestri had a cold.

‘Here it is,’ she croaked, ‘Riri Yusala, missing since ... February 2006. Looks like he jumped ship here at Albany ... naval exercises ... whaling ship ... I assume you’ve already read all this?’

Cato confirmed that he had and asked what else she could tell him about the case.

‘Wife and two kids back in ... Sulawesi?’ Not easy to say with a head cold.

‘Yes, I read that too,’ said Cato.

A few more keyboard clicks. ‘A couple of unconfirmed sightings: the first, a month or so after he disappeared. It was on a building site in Perth, a security guard with aspirations to be Sam Spade. Trawls mispers sites for a hobby, sad bastard. Anyway that’s how he recognised him, or thought he did. Reckoned he was doing some labouring on the hush-hush. If it
was
him he’d moved on by the time we had it checked out and whoever it was also had a new name ... Freddy Sudhyono. The foreman couldn’t confirm anything from the picture. “They all look the same,” he said.’

‘And the second sighting?’

‘Fremantle Markets: another month later. Somebody reckoned they saw him working at the satay stall there. A bit more credence to that one.’ Julie Silvestri snuffled and seemed to catch some mucous in her throat.

Cato winced at the noise. ‘Why?’

‘The guy who saw him was on leave from the Australian Navy, he’d been on the same ship as Yusala. He was sure it was him but he didn’t report it until about six weeks later. He hadn’t realised Yusala was deemed a missing person until he went into his local cop shop to collect his son who’d been picked up for underage drinking or something. Saw the Missing Persons poster while he was waiting.’

‘So why the “concern for his welfare” if he was last seen alive and well?’

‘Our Freo colleagues went back to the satay stall. It says here, quote, “The stall owner was terrified.” A Vietnamese woman, Penny Nguyen, said she’d last seen Freddy – so he’s still using the same name at that point anyway – she’d seen him arguing with two guys one night after work about a week earlier. They’d bundled him into a car and sped off. He hadn’t been back since.’

Cato leaned forward and gripped the phone a little harder. ‘Any description on the guys or the car?’

‘Australian. White. Big. That’s both the guys and the car. Otherwise it was too dark to see and it all happened too quickly, et cetera. No other witnesses, it seems.’

‘Nothing since?’

‘Nothing.’

‘What about his family or the Indonesian Navy? Did they provide any information on him worth knowing?’

‘Nothing on file. The Indonesian Navy doesn’t seem to have made any waves about his disappearance.’

She snorted at her little joke, inviting Cato to join in. He gave a false chuckle and heard Silvestri blow her nose daintily, one nostril at a time, away from the phone – snorting at her own joke probably hadn’t been a good idea.

‘Think he’s your floater?’

‘Maybe. But we’re a long way from Fremantle Markets, and a
long time past that sighting,’ Cato said.

‘Maybe they took him for a ride to give him a warning of some kind and when he got his chance later he did a runner?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Maybe baby. Anything else I can do for you, darl?’ Silvestri sneezed and the receiver exploded in Cato’s ear.

‘Have a nice hot lemon drink and some Panadol. Thanks Julie.’

‘Can I have a Panadol?’

The voice was self-pitying and slightly distorted, coming as it did out of Kane Stevenson’s smashed lips. But at least he was talking, which was good news for Tess. The nurse shook her head at Kane’s request.

‘Not for another four hours.’

It wasn’t Brunhilde from the Nazi Women’s League, Tess noted. Jim Buckley would have been disappointed. It was an older, some would say matronly, woman; her badge said ‘Jill’. Jill left and Tess smiled a greeting towards Kane Stevenson’s one half-open eye.

‘Looking much better today Kane.’

A grunt. The good eye closed.

‘Got a headache; that fucken Maori. Should be locked up.’

‘He is. We’ll be needing a statement from you, as victim, for the court case.’

The eye opened again. ‘Court case?’

‘Assault occasioning bodily harm: serious offence, the jailing type.’

‘Good.’

Tess had her notebook and pen ready. ‘So what happened?’

‘The big fucken Maori kicked the shit out of me.’

‘Why? What started it?’

‘Dunno. Just minding my own business and he starts up.’

‘We’ve got witnesses saying you’d been abusing the foreign workers, the contractors. That true?’

‘Just looking after my team.’

Tess glanced idly at the medical chart at the end of his bed; it
meant nothing to her.

‘Your team?’

‘Health and Safety. The Chinks haven’t got a fucking clue, always accidents with them around. You try talking to them and they can’t speak a word of English. Not even “Turn the fucking valve off”. Mate of mine nearly died the other day cos of them useless cunts.’

‘Did you assault any of the contractors, Kane?’

‘Bit of pushing and shoving, can’t remember who did what when. All I remember is the big...’

‘Maori, yeah Kane I get the picture. Soon as you’re well enough we’ll do a proper typed and signed statement for the court case, okay?’

‘Too right. Get that bastard put in jail. Get rid of them one way or another eh?’ Kane Stevenson smiled but winced when it cracked his sore lips.

Tess put her notebook away. ‘That’s the spirit. By the way, have you heard? Apparently you’re fired as well. You won’t need to worry about sticking up for your team anymore. Chin up Kane, keep smiling.’

Stuart Miller had woken in a foul mood. His brother-in-law had given him short shrift over his request to help find Arthurs. One, he was too busy and had more important things on his mind. Two, it was a needle-in-a-haystack job. Three, there were rules these days about unauthorised access of the police database. Thanks for nothing, you grumpy old time-serving bastard. Jim Buckley had never been one for taking the job home with him. Miller recalled family Christmases in the early days: Jenny and Maggie would clear off over to the beach with all the kids and he’d be left to make conversation with his semi-pissed and half-asleep wanker-in-law. Even though Stuart was out of the game now the obvious point of connection should have been The Job. Not a peep. No matter how many times Stuart would start the ball rolling with an anecdote, Jim would kick it into touch with a belch and the pop of a new can. The return of screaming kids and yet another plateful of turkey
came to be seen as a relief. He’d tried relating all of this to Jenny over the usual rushed breakfast this morning but he could tell her mind was on the coming day at school. She summoned up a semiconcerned, ‘Ach, ye poor wee sausage,’ in her Edinburgh brogue then pecked him on the cheek, squeezed his bum, told him she loved him, and left another list of jobs that needed doing.

He plonked himself down at the kitchen table and flicked away the chores list irritably. Reaching for yesterday’s paper he pored over the cold-case article again, willing it to give him some idea of what to do. After two or three re-reads and a second cup of tea he finally saw it.