Prime Cut

by Alan Carter

  9

  Thursday, October 9th. Midafternoon.

  Man-Mountain’s name turned out to be David Tahere. He’d had his eye stitched, been booked and processed, and was sitting meekly in the Ravensthorpe cop shop interview room when Cato walked in. Cato had sent Greg Fisher back to Hopetoun to pursue their Flipper inquiries before the day turned into too much of a write-off. The chair under the Maori could have been from the local playgroup for all the dignity and comfort it afforded him. Tahere looked up at Cato with the eye that was still able to open properly.

  ‘You a cop?’

  ‘Yes. Detective Senior Constable Kwong.’ Cato took a seat opposite him.

  ‘Don’t look like one.’

  ‘Must be my cunning disguise. What happened out there today, David?’

  ‘Got into a fight.’

  ‘I gathered that. Now you’re facing an assault charge.’ Cato had run David Tahere through the computer system. ‘Not your first time, you’ve got a bit of a record.’

  ‘Wasn’t my fault. He started it.’

  ‘Original.’

  ‘And tell that chick cop, she uses one of those zapper things on me again I’ll shove it up her arse and light her up like a fucken Christmas tree.’

  Knowing Tess, Cato didn’t fancy his chances. ‘Mate, there’s a guy in hospital. This is serious. You’re looking at doing time for this one. So tell me what happened, we need your side for the record.’

  ‘I’ll tell my story to Legal Aid.’ Tahere looked around as if they might be playing hidey behind the door. ‘Where are they anyway?’

  ‘Might take a while down here mate. This is the country. We’re talking days rather than hours.’

  Not strictly true but Cato was keen to expedite the matter and get back to Operation Flipper. ‘You know you’ve lost your job because of this don’t you?’

  Tahere sighed and shook his head. ‘All because of that scrawny, motor-mouthed Pakeha cunt.’

  Cato checked his notes. ‘Stevenson?’

  Man-Mountain growled. ‘That’s what I said wasn’t it?’

  ‘He doesn’t look like the kind who’d go picking a fight with somebody your size.’

  ‘He didn’t. He and his two mates set about one of the little Chinks ... No offence...’

  ‘None taken.’

  ‘And I’ve had a gutful. They’ve been giving us the shits for weeks. He had it coming.’

  ‘Want to make a statement now, David?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Cato readied his pen over his notepad. Tahere looked at him out of his good eye.

  ‘Git fucked.’

  Tess kept looking in the rear view on the way to Ravensthorpe. She had enjoyed her glimpses of a slightly perplexed Cato Kwong in the car behind. The afternoon sun was still high in the sky, and away from the coast the temperature had climbed by about ten degrees. Tess glanced over at Jim Buckley, filling the passenger seat and looking uncomfortable.

  ‘How’s it going with you and Cato in Stock Squad?’

  ‘Yeah, good.’

  ‘Keeping busy?’

  ‘You know how it is.’

  She had a pretty good idea; she was doing much the same thing most days in Hopetoun. Filling in time as easily as possible.

  ‘How did you end up in Stock Squad then?’

  Buckley fixed her with a back-off stare. ‘I asked for it.’

  Tess wondered if he realised that could be taken more than one way. ‘Surprised to see Cato in there; I didn’t think it was his cup of tea.’

  Buckley visibly relaxed, the subject had moved away from him and on to Cato.

  ‘I don’t think he planned it.’

  ‘No, not an obvious career move.’ Tess realised too late it might not be what Buckley wanted to hear. ‘I mean for somebody like Cato.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  Buckley was on the front foot now, beginning to enjoy himself. Tess pushed on regardless.

  ‘High-flyer. Fast track. That was Cato.’

  Jim Buckley smirked. ‘Want some other words? How about “fuck-up” or “corrupt” or “rotten apple”?’

  Tess stared at the road ahead and gripped the wheel a little tighter.

  ‘Cato? When was this? What happened?’

  She found it hard to believe but the look in Buckley’s eyes said it all.

  ‘Remember that Cockburn newsagent murder?’

  She couldn’t fail to; it was high profile for all the wrong reasons. Jim Buckley reclined his seat a little, stretched his legs, and relaxed into his story.

  ‘A woman got her head pulped during a robbery. They picked up the first poor bastard they saw on the street and pinned it on him. The big boys, like DI Mick Hutchens, got the “confession” out of him.’

  Buckley waved his cigarette packet hopefully at Tess but she shook her head disapprovingly. He pressed on with his tale with added relish.

  ‘Young Kwongie was an ambitious back-room boy, it was one of his first cases. His job was to make sure the witness statements fitted the confession Hutchens had conjured up. When the shit hit the fan and they found the real killer, by accident as fucking usual, the inquiry showed that the only strong paper trail had been left by Golden Boy.’

  ‘His name didn’t crop up in the news reports at the time,’ Tess pointed out, unwilling to accept what she was hearing.

  ‘Maybe the spin doctors put up a bamboo curtain.’ Buckley sniffed. ‘After all, he was the poster boy for the new multicultural Police Service, wouldn’t want to taint that tasty image would we?’

  Tess didn’t bother responding.

  ‘Maybe if he’d looked like the rest of us potato-nosed farm boys he’d have been hung out to dry. Anyway, long story short, Hutchens got moved sideways and downwards. Down all the way to Albany in fact. And your mate got demoted and dumped on us in Stock Squad. Bit of an insult to us I reckon.’

  Cato. Dirty. Was it possible? Of course it was. Every day, cops were tempted to cross the line. Money. Results. Revenge. Laziness. There could be any number of reasons for it but no excuses, not in her book.

  ‘I wonder why he didn’t get out,’ Tess said, as much to herself as to Buckley.

  ‘Don’t the Chinese have a thing about losing face?’

  Tess switched on the air conditioning. ‘Those cultural awareness classes have been the making of you, Jim.’

  Kane Stevenson had been stitched up and cleaned up and just arrived back from X-ray. There was no apparent skull fracture or damage but he’d be kept in overnight for observation, if they could rustle up some suitably qualified night staff. He was half propped up in the bed with big pillows fluffed around him. Little boy lost. The big long-lashed brown eyes, which got him into and out of a lot of trouble, were closed over, his nose was broken and lips split. He had what looked like a footprint across his face. Odds on it would match David Tahere’s right boot. Tess almost felt sorry for him; it didn’t take much to bring back memories of her own time in hospital. The silver lining was that Kane Stevenson wouldn’t be doing any more burnouts on the airport road for a while. Karma was the word that sprang to mind.

  The nurse, a severely fit and severely blonde young woman, was looking forward to going off-duty in half an hour and heading to basketball practice. She had let it be known that she was determined to keep to her schedule. Her badge said ‘Briony’. Tess reckoned it should have said ‘Brunhilde’.

  ‘He’s still pretty groggy so just a few minutes please. He should be in better shape for questions tomorrow.’

  On somebody else’s shift, Brunhilde might have added. Tess wondered if she should salute but instead just nodded thanks. She noticed Jim Buckley checking out Brunhilde’s calves as she left. Pathetic. Tess leaned down closer to Stevenson.

  ‘Kane, are you awake?’

  A half-moan, half-grunt escaped through the mashed mouth.

  ‘Sergeant Tess Maguire here, mate. Can you talk?’

  Same response with a gurgle thrown in. Tess looked up at Buckley.


  ‘This is going nowhere fast. Leave it until tomorrow?’

  A twitch in Stevenson’s battered face. Buckley saw it.

  ‘Kane. My name’s Detective Sergeant Jim Buckley. I think you’re pretending to be worse than you are. You don’t want us here. Why’s that, Kane?’

  Kane went limp and started playing dead again.

  Buckley pressed on. ‘The word is that you started it. Been shooting your mouth off about the Asians, the foreigners. That’s why the Maori kicked your arse. That what happened?’ Nothing. Buckley leaned in close to Stevenson’s ear. ‘Have a good night’s rest, Kane, we’ll pop back in to see you tomorrow.’

  Stuart Miller had brooded all day. Detective Delaney had, gently but firmly, put him in his place and it rankled. Not least because Delaney probably had a point. What did he have to offer? Jenny had given up trying to have a conversation with him and retired to the office in the granny flat to write some school reports. He’d hopped on to the internet and googled news reports of the 1981 Adelaide murders. It was pretty much as the West Australian had summarised it: a mum and three young kids electrocuted and bludgeoned, packed into the Holden and left in the bush: a macabre family getaway. Derek Chapman, Davey Arthurs. Why had he done it again? Was there some psychological trigger or was he just, as Delaney put it, fucking mad? It also begged another question: how did he get the papers enabling him to change his identity and move to Australia? And, biggest question of all, had he killed yet again, before or since the Sunderland and Adelaide murders?

  Miller was outside the loop. He needed more than Google to help him search for a killer. He needed to read the case notes from the Chapman murders, he needed the resources of the police force, but Delaney had patted him on the head and told him to leave it to the professionals, or words to that effect. The only person he knew inside the system, in the WA police at least, was his brother-in-law, Jenny’s sister’s bloke. Maggie had married the cop boyfriend from all those years ago. He was a brusque wanker and a bit of a clock-watcher but he was the only thing on offer. Jenny’s sister had died just over two years ago and they had even less contact with the wanker-in-law these days. Outside, the neighbours’ bairns were being summoned from their street games as the evening dimmed, called back into the safety of home and family. Miller’s resolve hardened; beggars can’t be choosers. He searched through the tattered address book and found the mobile number.

  ‘Jim. It’s Stuart ... Jenny’s husband?’

  There was a pause. Miller could almost hear the rusted memorywheels grinding into motion at the other end.

  ‘Stuart. Ey up lad, what can I do for you?’ said Jim Buckley, caricaturing his brother-in-law’s flat-vowelled, singsong accent.

  Miller heard the forced brightness and effort at civility. He cleared his throat. ‘Have you seen today’s paper?’

  Grand Final Day and the home team have lost, badly. No matter. The Karratha Hotel is pumping. Karratha, WA, the epicentre of the mining boom. The drink is flowing, music thumping; it’s standing room only and just the two fights so far. Tess and Constable Peter Latham fix their smiles in place and walk in. On their way to the bar they are assailed by sweat, testosterone, and alcohol fumes plus a cocktail of greetings, ‘G’day mate, have a beer’ or ‘Get fucked, fucken pigs’. Tess gives Pete a look, it says stick close. The manager, a squat barrel of a man in his late fifties, leans close to yell into Tess’s ear.

  ‘Is there a problem?’

  No, we’re here because we love this shit. Instead she says, ‘Big night tonight, George?’

  A whoop goes up as a barmaid, having lost a coin-toss, lifts her T-shirt for the crowd – a favourite mining town party trick, and theoretically banned. Tess gives George her stern schoolteacher look. He shrugs.

  ‘Sometimes they get carried away. I’ll have a word.’

  Just then there is a surge in the crowd, a few stumbles, a flying middy of beer and Tess is soaked. She is beginning to get pissed off. A big bloke with a checked shirt and ginger mullet is in her face: Johnno Djukic, three previous for assault, each time putting his de facto in hospital for a few days. Nice guy.

  ‘It was tails. I win. Show us your tits, missus.’

  His breath could power a V8.

  ‘Back off and behave yourself,’ Tess snaps.

  Djukic holds up his hands in mock fear and gives her a broad smile that never reaches his eyes. Big joke, the mates oooh, aaah and tsk-tsk. Tess cranes her neck to see where Pete is. From the raised, angry voices further down the bar she has her answer. He is engaged in a shouting match with a skinhead who, by the state of his eyeballs, has been consuming chemicals along with his grog. He is wired, beyond reason, and ready for blood. Tess has her hand on her baton as she tries to catch Pete’s eye.

  A glass smashes, the crowd surges again, a bar stool flies through the air. Tess feels an agonising wrenching jolt as someone grabs her by the hair, then she is lying on the floor curled up tight while they kick, and stomp, and spit. She looks up one last time trying to recognise faces for later – if there is a later. Johnno Djukic is in there, getting his two cents’ worth, stomping with the best of them, so is her colleague Pete and Greg Fisher and Jim Buckley and Cato. She thinks it will never stop. She just knows she is going to die. In the distance a siren wails and wails. And wails.

  Tess woke up fighting for breath, and crying again. Her alarm clock wailed. She turned it off.

  10

  Friday, October 10th. Early morning.

  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 th
e 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.