Prime Cut

by Alan Carter

  ‘Settling down, or keeping your head down? Have you upset anybody lately, Justin?’

  The big cheesy returned. ‘Not me, mate, I’m everybody’s friend.’

  Cato’s mobile buzzed. He looked at the caller ID; it was Tess. He put up his hand for Justin to stay where he was and answered the call.

  ‘We need you out at the mine,’ said Tess. ‘There’s some trouble.’

  ‘Trouble? What kind?’

  ‘A brawl, up to twenty involved. Mine security can’t handle it.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with me and Jim?’

  Tess let rip. ‘We need the numbers. Just get your fucking arse in gear and get out there now.’

  She broke the connection. Cato looked at the phone like it had just burnt his hand. He signalled urgently to Buckley and they sprinted to the car. Justin watched them go. Cato looked through his rearview mirror. He hadn’t missed that look of relief on Justin’s face.

  8

  Thursday, October 9th. Early afternoon.

  Blood roared through Tess’s ears as she raced the van into the centre of the compound, lights flashing and siren wailing. She felt like throwing up. It was always like this now before going into potentially violent situations: since Karratha, since Johnno Djukic.

  By agreement she’d been met by her Ravensthorpe colleagues at the mine entrance. They would all go in together to maximise numbers and effect.

  Tess’s opposite number at Ravy, Sergeant Paul Abbott, had a big frame but the kind of fleshy insecure body language that marked him out as easy prey to those out there of a mind to take advantage. He was a nine-to-fiver. If crime happened outside of office hours he wasn’t particularly interested. His offsider, Mitch Biddulph, a bullet-headed, barrel-chested farm boy, seemed a little more pumped up and enthusiastic for the fray but Tess was concerned by his thousand yard stare, the one that normally affects war veterans during or after the battle – not before. Greg just looked a bit pale. SWAT they were not. She dived in.

  Three separate fights seemed to be in progress, grown men in fluoro overalls slugging it out in the big boys’ playground. Psycho Teletubbies. Tess flicked out her baton and unclipped her taser with her free hand. They’d take care of each fight one at a time. She went for the nearest combatants, checking that Greg, Paul and Mitch were backing her. A large Maori was stomping on a smaller figure curled up on the ground while two other blokes hung on to his neck trying to pull him off. They hadn’t done very well so far. Tess remembered seeing an international rugby game on TV a few years earlier, All Blacks Jonah Lomu running down the wing with four English players hanging off him like Lilliputians. She shouted the usual formal warning but nobody was listening. She stood directly in front and fired the taser darts into his chest from a metre away. He grunted and dropped. The boys moved in with the handcuffs. It was a quick result and had the desired effect on the other combatants; they stopped. What was the term the Americans used? Shock and awe.

  Four mine security personnel hovered nervously. They were used to talking tough over a beer but had never really been tested until today. Checking passes at the gate was their strength. Their leader, who by the look of his gut had obviously done a lot of tough talking over a lot of beers in the past, helped his men to shepherd the gladiators a safe distance from each other. Tess called him over while her colleagues attended to the man on the ground.

  ‘What happened here?’

  The ID badge identified him as Karl Moore, Security Supervisor. Yeah right, good work, thought Tess. Moore cleared his throat to deliver the line he’d obviously worked out.

  ‘An argument started and then all hell broke loose.’

  Tess could probably have figured that one out for herself. ‘Who between?’

  ‘The regular shift and the contractors.’

  ‘What?’

  Moore looked at Tess as if she was a bit of an imbecile and helpfully pointed to the two groups. ‘Orange fluoros versus yellow fluoros.’

  Tess looked and saw it now: the Maori, dazed and handcuffed, in blue and yellow fluoros; the other guy, still flat out, blue and orange. And the other combatants, now turned spectators, two groups – yellow and orange – still glaring at each other and trading curses. The orange group were mainly Anglo. The yellow group a United Nations of Maoris, Filipinos, Indians, Chinese and Africans, plus a few wild-eyed Braveheart rangas who looked like they owed allegiance to no one but themselves. Tess turned back to the Security Supervisor.

  ‘What was the fight about?’

  Moore shrugged his shoulders and gestured towards the Maori. ‘Ask him.’

  Tess crouched down by the big man, now securely handcuffed and facedown on the gravel. ‘Well?’

  His face bore traditional tattoos, a bloody nose and a gashed eye closing over nicely thankyou. He opened his good eye.

  ‘Git fucked.’

  Tess sighed and looked over towards his victim, curled up like a foetus and still not moving. ‘How’s he looking?’

  Greg Fisher kept his face and voice neutral and suggested they call an ambulance. Karl the Security Supervisor let him know it had already been done – not as useless as he seemed then. Tess stepped over to get a closer look at the victim. He had a face like a dropped pie. Mashed as it was, she still recognised it: Kane Stevenson, Doughnut King.

  Detective Senior Constable Tim Delaney wasn’t as tall as he’d sounded on the phone. Stuart Miller figured he must have only just made the height requirements, if they still had them these days. Or maybe they weren’t so fussy in Adelaide. He was certainly dapper; in spite of the fierce heat he had on a suit and tie and didn’t look like it bothered him. He said he’d been in Bunbury, a rapidly expanding port city two hours south of Perth and forty minutes along the coast from where they were sitting in Busselton. The last known sighting of Derek Chapman had been there over ten years ago. Miller and Delaney were in the Equinox Cafe overlooking the Busselton Jetty, keeping their voices low so that the carefree tourists chattering around them would help mask their own conversation. Miller had all sorts of questions swirling inside his head; he reached for one.

  ‘You said Arthurs, or Chapman, sounded like me. How do you know? When did you hear his voice? Wasn’t this is all way before your time?’

  Detective Delaney twisted his mouth into a smile.

  ‘Derek Chapman, a Royalist to the core. The Queen’s visit to Adelaide, March 1977: he’s there with the wife and kids, the same ones he topped a few years later. He’s waving his little flag and he’s picked up in a vox pop by local ABC news.’

  Miller reminisced: 1977, Sex Pistols, ‘Anarchy in the UK’ and ‘God Save the Queen’. Meanwhile Miller and his young family had just been through their first Perth summer: blue, blue skies and sand burning their feet, a world away from the pessimism, greyness and industrial decline of north-east England. And Davey Arthurs teasingly close all that time.

  ‘The reporter dug the tape out of the archives after the 1981 murders. He’d seen the photo on the news and remembered the raving Pom with the weird accent. Apparently it wasn’t used at the time because nobody could understand a fucking word he was saying, but they’d kept it for training purposes. Who not to interview.’

  Miller shook his head, betraying the ghost of a smile; it was all too familiar. He’d registered that look of bewilderment on people’s faces countless times during his own thirty years in exile. Stuart Miller and Davey Arthurs – both needed subtitles.

  Delaney was part of a newly established Cold Case Unit, he explained, and they’d used this high-profile case with its gruesome details and old but, hopefully, workable leads to launch it. The digitally enhanced photofit helped sex it up for a twenty-first century public and the news media couldn’t get enough of it. So, Miller wondered, was this just a publicity exercise for the SA police force and a nice distraction from reports of corruption and incompetence on the thin blue line? Delaney seemed to read his mind.

  ‘It’s not just a stunt. We do believe we can land him,�
�� Delaney fixed Miller with a look to show he meant business. Miller wasn’t convinced.

  ‘WA’s a big place and your info is, what, ten years old? He could be anywhere. He could have moved on. He could be dead.’

  ‘Hence the public appeal. The calls are already coming in to the 1800 number in Adelaide.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Sightings in Port Hedland, Pannawonica, Perth, Fremantle, Bunbury, Albany, Kalgoorlie...’ Delaney smiled wryly, ‘all dead-set certainties.’

  ‘Any that ring true?’

  ‘We’re still processing it. We’ll be following up the calls. My colleague is in Perth coordinating that now.’

  Delaney leaned forward as if taking Miller into his confidence, letting slip the almost certainty that Chapman was very much alive and kicking. At least two of the reported sightings, admittedly still a year or more out of date, had also been ‘hearings’ and one of the witnesses, another Pom, had been able to do a very credible impersonation of the man he’d met in a roadhouse just before last Christmas; the accent was a real giveaway. Miller couldn’t argue with that last point but he could tell from the body language that Delaney was still not being totally up-front. It was cat and mouse; the younger man wasn’t going to write him off just yet because he might, for all he knew, come good. So he was offering the illusion of sharing and giving to keep the old fart in the fold. Miller had expected it; he used to be a cop after all and he knew only too well that instinct to play the cards close to the chest. No point in fighting it, he needed as much as he could get from Detective Delaney and this would possibly be his only chance.

  ‘What can you tell me about the MO?’

  ‘Seems like he wanted to make pretty sure they were dead. Caving their heads in should have been enough. But he was nothing if not thorough.’

  Miller felt his jaw and neck muscles tighten and the moisture disappear from his mouth. ‘The news report mentioned electrocution. How?’

  Delaney spun his phone almost absent-mindedly on the table.

  ‘Jump leads, some gizmo, a plug into the mains. Very inventive.’

  Miller nodded grimly. ‘All sounds like the same man doesn’t it?’

  Delaney wanted something from Miller now. ‘Any clues from yours as to the big Why?’

  Miller curled his lip. ‘No profilers in my day mate, no psychological claptrap. Just good and bad.’ Yes, he was playing the elder statesman, dinosaur and proud of it, but he had to admit a psychological profile of Arthurs would have been bloody useful. He lobbed the ball back over the net.

  ‘Did your psych take a look at the case notes?’

  Delaney nodded.

  Miller steepled his fingers. ‘And?’

  Delaney stopped spinning his phone and checked the time on it. ‘She reckons he’s fucking mad.’

  Miller could sense a meeting being wound up. ‘So how long have you got before they close up the purse strings and call you back home?’

  Delaney’s face hardened. ‘That’s my business.’

  Not long, Miller guessed. Detective Senior Constable Tim Delaney: a man working to try to catch a killer but on a tight budget and a strict deadline. Under pressure to get a result: same as it ever was. All Davey Arthurs/Derek Chapman had to do was keep his head down for a fortnight and things would be back to normal.

  ‘Anything I can do to help?’

  ‘Like what?’ To Miller’s sensitised ears Delaney’s reply was only a rung above a sneer. ‘Look, I appreciate the contacts you’ve given us for the Northumbria Police, that should fill in a bit more background. But unless you’ve got a magic wand or you get the chance to rugby-tackle him in the street it’s hard to see how you can help, Stuart.’

  He’d obviously done his homework. Miller hadn’t been a cop for thirty years. This was the case that destroyed him. He was already beaten, washed up, fat and comfortably retired. What could he possibly offer? Miller read the patronising look and averted his gaze.

  ‘Yeah, right ... I don’t know.’

  Delaney stood up and put out his hand.

  ‘Well, Stuart, thanks for the tip-off, very useful. Here’s my card. Give me a call if anything else comes back to you, okay?’

  And he was off, a smart young man in a suit, going places. Miller, a silly old codger in his baggy shorts and sticky polo shirt, didn’t move.

  The fat lady had sung by the time Cato and Buckley arrived at the mine. They’d passed an ambulance on the way in, its headlights flashing but no siren. Cato could see Tess, Greg and two other officers interviewing various people in separate clusters and taking notes and names. Some sheepish security guards were loitering, looking like spare parts and sharing a smoke. One of the police vans was occupied; swearing and kicking sounds echoing from the back. The accent sounded Kiwi. Jim Buckley went over, slapped the window a few times and told him to shut the fuck up. It didn’t work. Tess’s little group seemed to be nodding and smiling a lot. Cato figured them for management and PR people, he went over to stick his nose in.

  Tess glowered at him. ‘Glad you could join us.’

  Cato smiled at her then shifted his gaze and extended his hand to her companions. ‘Detective Senior Constable Philip Kwong.’

  A man with nice, clean, ironed blue and orange fluoros, a managerial healthy tan, good teeth, firm jaw and piercing eyes stuck his hand out in return.

  ‘Marnus Van der Kuyp, General Manager.’

  South African and a half. His companion was slightly smaller, rounder, and it looked like his job was to be nice to people.

  ‘Bruce Yelland, Community Relations.’

  ‘Bit of trouble today?’ Cato said, stating the obvious.

  Yelland shrugged and smiled. ‘Sorry to have dragged you out here, bit of a storm in a teacup.’

  ‘A man has been hospitalised,’ Tess reminded him.

  Yelland didn’t miss a beat. ‘Yes, yes terrible. The guys responsible are finished here, that’s for sure. Zero tolerance for this kind of behaviour, absolutely.’

  Tess wasn’t letting him off the hook. ‘Well we’ve still got to get to the bottom of this. Charges will be laid. We may need to come back and talk to some of these people again. And yourselves of course.’

  Cato played nice guy while Tess fixed her eyes on Yelland and Van der Kuyp; the latter gave her a curt nod and a quick smile. A few metres away in the paddy wagon there was another flurry of kicks and a ‘Fucken bastards, let me out of here!’ Bruce Yelland looked like he was having trouble sticking to his job description today. He forced another smile. The look said ‘boys will be boys’.

  ‘Of course, you have our full cooperation, Sergeant.’ He turned to Cato. ‘Good to meet you, Philip. You must come out here one day and we can give you the grand tour.’

  ‘Love to,’ said Cato with a big friendly grin.

  The big cheeses rolled away. The Ravy reinforcements, having finished taking names, quickly introduced themselves to Cato and Buckley, then they too left with their noisy prisoner.

  ‘Thank Christ,’ said Buckley, taking out a cigarette and lighting up.

  Cato nodded to Tess for them to take a short walk away from the smoke.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘An argument between regular shift-workers and contractors; got out of hand. The Maori in the van stomped on a kid. Knowing the kid, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had it coming. He’s a bit of a mess but he’ll survive. He’s gone to hospital for checks. Most other injuries are minor cuts and bruises.’

  ‘What was it about?’

  ‘From what we’ve heard so far, it’s ongoing tension between locals versus incomers, Aussies versus foreigners, staff versus contractors. The usual tribal us-and-them crap.’

  Cato nodded: same old, same old. Tribalism was the bread and butter of police work: that and grog. Oh and idiots. All three in fact.

  Tess sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘It seems to have come to a head in the last few days over health and safety. There was an accident yesterday, a chemical spill from
one of the pipes. Apparently one of the contractors caused it and when they yelled at him to hit the emergency switch he couldn’t understand them. Meanwhile the poor bastard still in the tank was getting his legs boiled by some corrosive.’

  Cato remembered the ambulance he’d seen on his way to the Ravensthorpe post-mortem last night; so that’s who was behind the double doors giving out the muffled cries. Cato hoped they’d managed to drum up enough medical staff from somewhere to help out at Tumbleweed General.

  ‘But surely they should be taking all that up with management?’

  Tess shrugged. ‘They’re all on individual contracts now. Not so easy to stick your head up and be counted these days. Easier to take it out on the bloke next to you.’

  Jim Buckley had rejoined them. He frowned. ‘So it was the Kiwi who caused the acid spill? I didn’t think his English was that bad from what I could hear.’

  Tess’s mouth twitched into a smile. ‘No, one of the Chinese, but the contractors are sticking up for each other. Apparently there’s been enough bad blood generated over the last few months to make an injury to one an injury to all.’

  ‘Bloody foreigners,’ said Buckley, eyes sparkling with mischief.

  Cato focused his attention on Tess. ‘So where to from here, boss?’

  By Cato’s standards, this was an apology for him being less than helpful when she called for assistance earlier. Their eyes met and for the first time since he’d arrived Cato detected a glimmer of warmth in Tess’s voice.

  ‘Let’s go and talk to our gladiators. You and Greg take Man-Mountain, he’ll be at the Ravy lockup once the doctor has checked his cuts and bruises. I’ll go to the hospital to see how the “victim” is shaping up.’ Tess paused. ‘Jim, could you help me out with that, please?’

  Buckley looked up surprised and a bit worried. He was probably not used to being called by his other name, or people saying ‘please’ – and no doubt wondering why Tess wanted him along anyway. Cato was wondering the same thing.