by Alan Carter
Vanessa Fisher had driven from Pinjarra to Perth and taken a direct flight down to Esperance, arriving midmorning. It got her there quicker and it meant she didn’t have to drive through the cursed Ravensthorpe area. She saw Greg’s injuries as a direct result of him taking up that job in such a sad and evil place. He should have listened to their warnings. Tess couldn’t argue with that.
She encouraged Greg’s mum to go and have a coffee break and a spot of lunch while her son slept, promising faithfully to call her on the mobile if he woke in the meantime. Tess studied his face, asleep behind the oxygen mask, long curling eyelashes, and so young. She choked back a sob she never realised she had in her. What was he doing out at Billy Mather’s camp last night, miles from anywhere? DI Hutchens wasn’t the only one who wanted to know; Tess was curious too. Greg was her partner. Over the months since he’d started his probationary posting she’d got to know him and was beginning to like him and care about him. He was enthusiastic, energetic and ambitious. She remembered the feeling. They were meant to be partners but she knew nothing of this. Was he learning already to keep secrets, to have his own agenda? Or was she just too nuts to talk to these days?
Greg shifted a little in his sleep, his eyes and forehead furrowed in a frown. He had been with Jim Buckley’s brother-in-law, Stuart Miller, an ex-cop from way back, according to McGowan who’d phoned her on Hutchens’ behalf. What was their interest in Mather? Tess didn’t know enough to speculate. Once he woke she might be wiser. In the meantime she picked up one of a small bundle of glossy gossip mags left by the well-meaning nurse. A fading teen pop star was still in and out of rehab and banned from seeing her kids, a Hollywood A-list super couple were pregnant again, and there’d been some dreadful wardrobe decisions at a recent red carpet event. All reassuringly divorced from the daily reality of Tess’s life in Hopetoun. Greg stirred and snored. Tess willed him to wake up and then almost immediately felt guilty about it. Okay, so her motives for accompanying him in the ambulance to Esperance were not entirely altruistic. She had other things to do here in town and was hoping to get on with it sooner rather than later.
Greg snuffled, opened an eye. ‘Tess?’ The voice was parched, croaking.
She put down the mag, poured a cup of water for him and held it to his lips. ‘You look like shit.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Your mum’s just popped out for a break. Back soon.’
‘Yeah fine.’ He looked exhausted, like he might drop straight back off to sleep again.
‘What happened out there, Greg?’
‘Hoped you might tell me.’ Then he frowned, remembering something. ‘How’s Stuart?’
‘He’s been taken to Perth. Still waiting to hear.’
‘Bad?’
Tess nodded. ‘Why were you out there, Greg? Why the visit to Billy Mather?’
‘Stuart thought he might be some guy wanted for murder, an old Pommie case. I couldn’t see the likeness myself.’
‘Likeness?’
‘Photo. In the West one day last week.’
‘What made Stuart think it could be Mather?’
Greg croaked again and took another sip of water. ‘I told him they had the same funny accent, Stuart and Mather. Plus Jim Buckley had phoned Stuart the night he died. He was convinced he’d seen the guy from the paper in the Hopey pub that night.’
‘Mather?’
‘That’s what we were going to check. Stuart wanted to meet him to see if he was the same bloke.’
‘And was he?’
Greg shifted position and winced. ‘We still don’t know. The caravan exploded. As far as I know, Stuart still hasn’t seen him yet.’
Tess kept to herself the news from the hospital in Perth that, in all probability, Stuart Miller would never get to see Billy Mather.
Cato Kwong and Mark McGowan had retired to the peace and seclusion of the Sea Rescue hut. The town hall was heading for fever pitch. The media contingent had got wind of some significant development and were milling on the gravel outside. Some had also heard about the explosion out at Starvation Bay and were putting two and two together to make nonsense. DI Hutchens seemed happy to let them speculate away to their heart’s content. He and Lara Sumich had already left for the Ravensthorpe lockup in a three-car convoy. The other cars contained Justin Woodward and his girlfriend Angelique, each in separate vehicles and accompanied by stony-faced detectives who looked like they’d been specially bred in an Orc factory on the outskirts of Albany. The suspect and his girlfriend would stew in Ravensthorpe until the arrival of Woodward’s solicitor, hastily summoned from Perth. Cato couldn’t help but smile when he’d caught sight of a freshly dapper Hutchens and his big wide grin on the way out the door. The pugnacious little prick was in his element.
McGowan, with the personnel list in front of him, was on the phone to Keith Stevenson, arranging to link up with the residents of the two caravans. Keith’s previous threats to evict the Chinese workers and send them back home were, of course, all hot air for Cato’s benefit. In fact they were still on the payroll, still living in their less than salubrious surroundings and still doing their tenhour days. McGowan had the phone on speaker so Cato could enjoy the show. Stevenson hadn’t lost the bluster.
‘Why don’t you bastards just leave me alone? This is harassment, plain and simple.’
McGowan tried his soothing voice. ‘Keith. Mate. I’m just trying to do my job. Just like you.’
‘Don’t call me mate,’ he growled.
McGowan abandoned soothing. ‘Have them at your office by three, Mr Stevenson, or we’ll come looking for them. Obstruct us any further and we’ll close down your operations while we carry out our lawful business. You won’t make another cent until we’re good and ready. See you at three.’ He flicked his phone shut.
Cato mimed applause.
McGowan looked a bit flustered. ‘So where do we put all these ... people?’
‘Let’s commandeer one of Stevenson’s portacabins. Least he can do.’
McGowan smiled. ‘I’m beginning to like your style, Cato mate.’
Cato returned to the tagged belongings of Guan Yu and Hai Chen. He’d already dispatched around half a dozen uniforms from Ravensthorpe, Ongerup, and Lake Grace to comb Paddy’s Field under the supervision of Duncan Goldflam. The geographical radius of cop reinforcements was growing exponentially to the twists and turns in each of the cases. Cato cursed the fact that he hadn’t nailed Paddy’s Field earlier, thus allowing even more time for any evidence to be removed, or destroyed by the elements. He’d also made an appointment for a chat with the foreman, Travis Grant, later that afternoon. Grant picked these blokes up and dropped them off at Paddy’s Field every day. Had he noticed anything unusual? He must have. For one thing a key worker hadn’t shown up for work that morning. By all accounts Chen was the gangmaster of the Chinese, the main conduit between employer and employees, yet Grant was lumping him in with the rest of the faceless hordes just pulling another sickie. Bullshit, and Cato Kwong had let it flow, unchecked.
He opened the first plastic Ziploc envelope: Guan Yu’s contract of employment with SaS Personnel. Cato remembered the man’s cheerful thumbs-up as he proudly told them about his weekly pay packet of five hundred dollars. On paper it all looked reasonable enough. His employer was sponsoring him as a temporary skilled migrant for the duration of the contract up to a maximum of two years. Travel expenses from China to Australia, and back again, would be covered by the employer. He would be paid the minimum award wage, just over forty-three thousand dollars a year. Cato did the sums: just over eight hundred a week coming down to about five hundred after tax and other deductions. So far so good, Guan Yu hadn’t been lying about that part anyway.
What were the deductions? Accommodation, uniform, agency fees, daily travel to and from the worksite. Cato snorted. The rickety ancient caravans were the accommodation, Travis Grant and his minibus were the travel expenses, SaS agency commission, et cetera, et cetera. He began to see where Kei
th Stevenson was taking his substantial slice. Then there was Guan’s mention of Chen taking his weekly cut of fifty dollars per man. How much cash in hand did that leave them? The official deductions, taxes and such, would account for the drop from eight hundred to five. The SaS deductions would reduce it even further. But Guan believed he was getting five hundred in his hand. Is that what happened? Did he find out he wasn’t getting what he expected and blame Chen?
Cato dug out an envelope from Hai Chen’s belongings. He had a similar contract to Guan except that as gangmaster his rate of pay was higher, nearer to fifty thousand per annum. He was also paid a one-off lump sum commission from SaS Personnel for organising the Chinese end of the recruitment. Five thousand dollars from SaS, plus his weekly rake-off of fifty dollars per man; seven colleagues in Paddy’s Field plus another eight dossing in a donga at Barren Pastures. Fifteen lots of fifty per week over the course of up to two years. In terms of the la-la land currency floating around mining towns these days it was mere loose change but, relatively speaking, Chen was definitely doing all right.
Hai Chen’s bank statements told a very different story: there were direct weekly credits of just over four thousand five hundred dollars. He was receiving the pay for himself and all of his colleagues into his account – no doubt an administrative convenience for all concerned. Maybe his mates believed he was holding their money in trust for them. In fact he was creaming off a further hundred bucks per week per man with weekly transfers of around one thousand five hundred to another account in his name. They were paying Chen a ‘commission’ of around a hundred and fifty dollars a week, not fifty; that made it thirty per cent instead of ten per cent. Chen’s current balance on the linked account was just under sixtyfive thousand dollars. He was well and truly cashed-up. Cato flicked through the rest of the papers in Chen’s collection. Nothing else jumped out. But if Guan Yu somehow got wind of this rip-off then it was obviously a motive for murder. Men had certainly died for much less.
He checked another envelope: Chen’s personal effects. Letters home, photos of kids, wife, a family wedding. Nothing. Cato looked again. Something had caught his eye in one of the wedding photos. It was a big team shot: Hai Chen and his bride in the centre surrounded by parents, grandparents, in-laws, everyone. He’d noticed the photo in his first brief trawl through the belongings out at Paddy’s Field and not paid too much attention to the detail, but now he could see it. Over to one side, dressed to the nines in Chen’s wedding album, wearing a bow tie and a big cheesy. Guan Yu.
28
Wednesday, October 15th. Midafternoon.
The hire car was hardly the most discreet of surveillance vehicles. Powder blue, Hyundai Getz, big rental stickers in side and back windows. A secretary’s car, good lippy mirror though. Tess Maguire checked her reflection. She’d been awake most of the night and hadn’t had time for a shower before the call-out to Starvation Bay. She needed more than a smear of lippy to look presentable.
Esperance, the Bay of Isles – she was looking at them right now. The Getz was angle-parked, pointing out to the Southern Ocean. To her immediate left the long jetty curved out into the sparkling blue bay. Away to her right was the port which serviced the lead and nickel ships, carriers of the poisonous pixie dust that had been sprinkled on the tourist town for the last three or four years. What was it the Buddhists or Taoists or whatever, called it? Yin and Yang? Those beautiful islands out in the bay, once the haunt of pirates, cutthroats and rapists. Greg Fisher had told her stories about the sealers who used to come to the mainland, kidnap Nyungar women and girls, and take them back to their island camps never to be seen again. A vision of beauty masking a scene of horror. Yin and Yang. The young woman strolling along the jetty with her toddler tottering unsteadily beside her. A young mum and her lovely little tacker: wife and child of stompin’ Johnno Djukic; Yin and Yang.
Tess sipped her cappuccino from the Coffee Cat takeaway van, a favourite foreshore drawcard. The coffee was great, Cato would approve. She thought about phoning him, to see how he was going, to see why he hadn’t gone back to his family yet. Cato the mystery man. Cato could wait-o; Tess had work to do. Greg Fisher was now sleeping peacefully, watched over by his distraught mum. Tess had made her excuses and left. She’d made straight for the Bay of Isles car-hire depot and taken what was available. Then she’d parked the Getz outside the address given for Djukic and waited for something to happen. An hour or so later, something did.
She’d followed mother and child from their compact fibro home a few blocks back from the foreshore. Mrs Djukic had no reason to think the Hyundai behind her rusting white Datsun was in fact following her. She didn’t inhabit that kind of world, very few do. Tess didn’t know why she was doing this; John Djukic was two hundred kilometres away on the mine site. Tess gave it some thought: she figured she wanted to know as much about him as possible. Know thine enemy. This seemed like as good a place to start as any. Mrs Djukic and baby Djukic, both as cute as buttons, Johnno’s pride and joy. Tess decided to have a word.
‘Beautiful day.’
The young woman smiled and nodded in reply, picking up the little kid for a protective cuddle. Shy? Wary of a stranger? Wary of Tess herself, she of the sleepless night, the haggard look, the ungroomed hair? The young mum was Asian, Thai maybe? The little boy was about a year old. Some European features mixed in but no sign of Johnno’s mad black eyes or red hair, yet. He was chuckling away, playing with his mother’s bead necklace. The sea breeze was strengthening. Tess pulled her windcheater jacket closer around her, aware of the weight of her service issue gun in an inside pocket. She looked down from the jetty as the sea lion broke the surface of the water, nodding its whiskered head up at the spectators. It was a beautiful creature with a sleek shiny body and big brown eyes. Tess remembered her swim with the baby seal. The purity and beauty of the moment that had left her laughing and crying at the same time. Yin and Yang? Or just the symptom of an unbalanced mind?
‘I’m Tess.’
Tess smiled, gave the baby a little wave and made a funny face. The young woman nodded and smiled back and clutched her child a little closer.
‘Gorgeous kid.’ Tess gestured casually at the infant.
The woman smiled again, this time in apology. ‘Sorry. English not good.’
Tess nodded and smiled in understanding, lots of nodding and smiling today. She leaned on the top of the guardrail which kept people from falling the five or six metres into the choppy sea.
‘Where you from?’
‘Thailand.’
‘Ah. Holiday?’
‘No, no. Live here.’
‘Tess,’ Tess said again, pointing at herself.
‘Koo. And this one, Johnny,’ she patted the baby on the back gently.
‘Cute.’
‘Thank you.’
Tess sniffed the salt breeze and smiled again. There was nobody within two hundred metres or more. Koo and baby Johnny; she turned and faced them. One shove and they’d be in the drink; Tess was pretty confident the mother couldn’t swim.
‘Husband working?’
‘Yes. Away at the mine.’ She patted the baby again. ‘Johnny miss his dad.’
Tess looked at them both. They were from a different world. They were innocent and had nothing to do with the history between her and Johnno Djukic. History, dead right. Push them in the water and watch them drown. Sure, that would solve everything. Not. Suicidal, beating up on kids and now harbouring homicidal thoughts towards strangers: is this what madness is? What the hell did she think she was doing here? Her daughter’s words came back to her.
I’m meant to be the reckless out of control one around here.
She turned away, wondering what to do to ease the bursting in her chest.
‘Well, must go now. Nice to meet you, Koo.’
‘Okay, bye-bye.’ Koo lifted baby Johnny’s hand and helped him wave at Tess, his face lit up with an uncertain smile.
Tess gave the kid a little wave back and pulled a
nother funny face. ‘Bye-bye.’
It was well and truly time to move on.
‘Who’s your mate, Trav?’
Travis Grant nodded tersely towards his cronies at the bar, winked, and tried his best to look casual. It wasn’t working. Meeting in the Port Hotel in front of all the mates had been Cato Kwong’s idea. No, really, Cato had insisted, his shout. They had retreated to a dark corner near the back door, Travis trying his best to merge into the peeling, scuffed wall behind him. Cato, for his part, making every effort to stand tall and stick out like a big sore Chinese thumb.
‘Cheers.’ Cato lifted his glass: a lurid-green lemon, lime and soda and a straw. He savoured the younger man’s obvious discomfort, clinked Travis’s middy loudly and sucked noisily on his straw. It was late afternoon, Wednesday, only a handful of punters, but they all knew Trav. An afternoon soap was playing on the twin plasmas with sound muted. A game of pool was in progress. Outside, across the road, the Southern Ocean had been whipped up by the afternoon breeze. The Hopetoun main drag looked like a Hollywood scenery backlot for a ghost town. Travis Grant certainly had a haunted look about him.
Cato took a sip from his bright green drink and put it back on the tall table. He sighed loudly and smacked his lips in satisfaction. ‘SaS. Stevenson and Sons, that right?’
‘Yeah, what about it?’
‘Is that Keith and Kane?’
Grant snorted. ‘Way off, mate. Stevenson’s the nanna in the old folk’s home. Keith’s the son.’
Cato nodded like he hadn’t already worked it out for himself. ‘Why’s the nanna down as a company director?’
