by Alan Carter
There were about thirty guests in clusters of threes and fours on the spacious limestone patio and expansive well-kept lawn. Cato recognised Travis Grant bending over an esky, scowling when he noticed the gatecrasher. Beside him, Kane Stevenson, face healing nicely. They were in the company of a couple of the barmaids from the pub. Otherwise that was it as far as familiar faces go. The music was baby-boomer stuff: Daddy Cool, ‘Eagle Rock’. A few heads turned briefly as Cato made his entrance, returning to their conversations once they realised they didn’t know him. One or two did subtle double takes; they hadn’t expected to see any of the Chinese labourers in Keith’s backyard but realised it was probably rude to stare. Keith Stevenson, on the other hand, just stood and stared.
His squat powerful body strained against an Eagles footy top. The millionaire businessman completed the ensemble with board shorts and thongs. Daddy Cool himself. A sweating Corona poked out the top of his clenched fist. In the other hand, barbie tongs. Stevenson was turning thick lumps of meat on a hotplate and grill that seemed, to Cato’s untrained eye, about the size of a pingpong table. The host was mid-conversation with a tall, tanned, distinguished-looking man: mid-fifties, close-cropped grey hair, looked like he kept in shape from regular tennis or running. He oozed money and he eyed Cato with detached curiosity. It was mutual; the face was vaguely familiar to Cato but he couldn’t place it, yet. Keith Stevenson made up his mind to try being hospitable.
‘Mr Kwong, Philip isn’t it? Can I get you a beer mate?’
Stevenson had chosen not to use any words suggesting police.
Cato helped him out in clear confident tones. ‘No thanks, Mr Stevenson, this is business, not pleasure. Police business.’ He flashed his ID card to underline his point.
The nearest conversations stuttered and stalled. Heads which had ignored Cato a few minutes ago now turned to study him.
Keith Stevenson smiled wearily at his tall, elegant companion: the trials of life and leadership. He gestured towards the open French doors and the kitchen beyond. ‘Maybe we should step inside the house, Mr Kwong.’
‘No. I’m good here, thanks.’
The meat smelled glorious. There was a marinade and Cato caught whiffs of garlic, soy sauce, lemon and chilli. He realised he was starving.
It didn’t look like the host was about to offer him anything any time soon. ‘So state your business,’ Keith said.
Kerry Stevenson made a grand entrance through the French doors. She’d made an effort for the party. Tracky-dacks had been replaced by ironed slacks and a glittery T-shirt. She stared one-eyed at Cato through a blue curl of cigarette smoke.
‘What’s he want, Keith?’
Keith rustled up a smile for the benefit of his guests. ‘Just a quick word love, and then he’ll be on his way. So how can I help you, Officer?’
The last word pronounced with an added “H” prefixed for comic effect.
Cato was in no hurry, he lazily surveyed his surroundings. ‘Nice place, Keith. Doing well for yourself.’
Stevenson served up a smug shrug. ‘Work hard, play hard; reap the rewards.’
Cato nodded. ‘Not bad for an ex–thug and standover man. It is “ex” isn’t it?’
Stevenson’s fixed smile hardened, the remaining party conversations fizzled out. They now had everyone’s attention. ‘Fair play mate, is this what you call “police business”? You’re on my property, insulting me in front of my guests. It’s just not on.’
The tall smooth rich guy stepped forward, hand outstretched. ‘I don’t think we’ve been introduced. I’m Jim Dunstan.’
Cato remembered now: the man from the Dunstan Industries website. Dunstan Industries, the Halliburton of Hopetoun. Cato shook the hand; it was a grip that wasn’t trying to prove anything. It didn’t have to, but it still failed as a circuit breaker. Cato Kwong and Keith Stevenson weren’t to be diverted from the path they’d set themselves on.
Cato made the next move. ‘Your employees, the ones who live in the caravans in Paddy’s Field, how much do you charge them to live in that squalor?’
Stevenson flipped a lump of meat with the tongs, pressed it down and made it sizzle. ‘If they choose to live like pigs that’s their business, I’m just a landlord doing them a favour. This is a boomtown, accommodation is at a premium.’
Cato looked skywards and squinted in apparent concentration. ‘A hundred and fifty per man, per week: four men to a caravan half the size of your kitchen. That’s six hundred bucks a week. That would get you a fair-sized house even at inflated Hopetoun prices. How am I doing?’
‘You sure you’re a cop? You sound like a shop steward for your mates.’
There were a couple of snorts and chuckles from the audience.
Cato was undeterred, counting off on his fingers. ‘Then fifty bucks a week each for transport; that’s Travis and the minibus. A one-off payment for the overalls, two sets, a hundred each. Then there’s the return airfare from China, agent’s commission, et cetera, et cetera.’
Stevenson theatrically checked his watch. ‘Well nice as it is to chat...’
‘They think they’re on a good thing getting five hundred a week in the hand, but they’re not even getting that are they? After all of your deductions they’ll be lucky to scrape two, two-fifty. For ten hours a day, six days a week. That’s what, about four bucks an hour? They’d be better off working at a fast food joint.’
There were a few embarrassed coughs from the audience.
‘And if they complain you can just send them back and get another batch.’
‘Have you finished?’
It was a low growl; Stevenson had taken a couple of steps closer. No, Cato hadn’t finished. He had also noticed something in Jimmy Dunstan’s face: a look of revulsion but also a bit of guilt in there too. He was doing the same with his foreign workers, perhaps not quite so venal but maybe on a grander scale? Bigger projects, more workers, a thinner skim but a wider spread. More subtle, more class.
Cato pressed home his point. ‘And the really pathetic thing is that you don’t even need their money. The value of the contracts on your books makes you a rich man either way, but you have to have it all because you can. Meanwhile, you hide your business affairs behind an off-the-shelf company with your decrepit old mum as the legally responsible office-bearer. Charming.’
Stevenson was clenching and unclenching his fists.
Cato took a step closer. ‘Once a standover man, always one; is that why Chen was killed? The others found out about the extra deductions? They thought it was Chen ripping them off. But it was you all along.’
Stevenson was fast. In one fluid movement he launched himself forward, head-butting Cato, breaking his nose and momentarily blinding him with the pain. Cato reached out for a weapon, any weapon. His hand closed around a jar of Dijon mustard. He crunched it into the side of Stevenson’s head. Stevenson kept coming. Cato’s arm was pushed halfway up his back to snapping point, the way cops usually do to bad guys. Stevenson had his spare hand on the back of Cato’s head, bending him over the searing barbecue, pushing his face down towards the hotplate, the very hotplate. Cato’s free hand waved about, unable to get any purchase except on scalding metal. He was powerless, absolutely at Stevenson’s mercy. There was a throaty chuckle from the back of the audience: probably Travis, the Master’s Apprentice, getting his revenge by proxy.
It was a mouth-watering aroma of spicy sizzling marinade but it was eye-wateringly close, about two centimetres away. Blood dripping from his smashed nose spat and bubbled on the hotplate. Cato could feel his face beginning to burn. Was that new smell of over-cooked meat him?
‘That’s enough Keith.’
It was Jim Dunstan, sounding quite masterful. Stevenson pushed Cato closer to the hotplate, he could feel something dripping from Stevenson’s head on to the back of his own neck. It was a lukewarm greasy concoction of sweat, French mustard and blood from the deep cut just above his tormentor’s left ear.
‘Keith. Enough.’
<
br /> A pit bull being called to heel. Stevenson hissed in Cato’s ear, ‘Keep away from me and my family or next time I’ll fucking flamegrill you, you cunt.’ He released his grip. ‘Now fuck off.’
As a conversation point, the scene took some beating. It was what the Australian chattering classes call ‘a real barbecue-stopper’.
Cato Kwong bowed his head and slunk dejectedly out of the side gate, all eyes on him. An embarrassed hush amplified his lonely footsteps on the limestone paving. He held a handkerchief over his shattered nose to try to stem the flow. The blood-soaked cloth also helped hide the wide grin beneath. As his face was being pushed into the hotplate, Cato knew he was so close to the truth he could almost taste it.
It wasn’t until he was halfway down Wilkinson Street that Cato remembered. He was meant to catch the evening flight to Perth for Jim Buckley’s funeral. He saw the tiny silhouette of the plane against the dying orange of the western sky, banking around to swing north. The horizon tilted and swung, Cato steadied himself against someone’s gatepost.
‘You look terrible.’ It was Tess Maguire, seated on her front porch at the house next door, a gin and tonic on the low table next to her.
‘Thanks.’
Cato lifted his head and Tess could see clearly now the damage Stevenson had done. She was down her front path in three quick strides, leading Cato back to a seat on the shaded verandah.
‘Don’t you ever eat?’
‘Sorry?’
Cato, head back and handkerchief to nose, waved the half packet of frozen peas. ‘Same ones we used for my thumb.’
Tess smiled grimly and placed a gin and tonic on the table beside him. ‘Keith Stevenson I presume?’
‘How’d you guess?’
‘I can see his driveway from here. Saw you stagger down it.’
‘So much for the dignified exit, stage left.’
‘I hope you left him in a worse state.’
‘Yeah, it might take him a while to get the sauce stains off his shirt.’
‘My hero; so what happened?’
Between sips of Gordon’s and tonic and dabs at his streaming nose, Cato told her. The forensic report on how Hai Chen really died; the conflicting interviews with Guan Yu, the other Chinese workers and Travis Grant; the bank statements; the RSPCA; and the four-by-two. Tess tutted mock disapproval when he mentioned the anonymous phone tip-off about the sheep. He wrapped up with Guan Yu coming clean; the confrontation with Stevenson.
At the end of it all Tess sat back on the cheap cane chair and frowned. ‘Do you really think Stevenson shot Chen?’
Cato shrugged, not so easy to do with your head right back.
The sun was gone but the breeze had dropped. It was a still and not-too-cold evening with a big round moon hovering in the eastern sky. The muffled sounds of Stevenson’s soiree drifted down the hill to the Maguire porch on the humble side of the street. Cato looked at Tess properly for the first time since he’d stumbled down her path. She wore jeans and a loose cotton shirt and her bare feet, crossed at the ankles, rested on the low table in front of her. Her toenails were freshly painted and the little bottle of polish sat beside a bowl of peanuts. She looked good. He glanced down at his own bloodencrusted clothes and smelt the animal grease and marinade from his close encounter with Stevenson’s hotplate.
‘Hungry?’ Tess inquired.
‘Not any more.’
Tess returned to her theme. ‘We know Keith Stevenson’s a thug from way back and it’s no surprise that he’s a nasty boss. But a coldblooded murderer?’
‘Those Chinese don’t have access to guns, cars or boats, which are what was needed here.’
‘How do you know?’
‘They’re totally dependent on Grant and Stevenson for moving them around. Nobody has mentioned guns at Paddy’s Field. They agree a fight happened and Guan Yu hit the victim with a stick but the news about the bullet in Chen’s head came as a real surprise. Somebody else did it and my money is on Grant or Stevenson or both.’
Tess sipped more of her drink. ‘So how do you prove it?’
Cato peered up the hill at the steep floodlit driveway and the fairy lights at Stevenson’s Palace. The good ship Kerry nestled on the trailer with a silver Prado flanking it and Stevenson’s company ute parked in front. Cato patted his pockets for his mobile and found the number for Duncan Goldflam.
Call finished, Tess eyed Cato over the rim of her glass. ‘Don’t you need a warrant to turn his place over?’
Cato tipped his head back, placed the melting pack of frozen peas on the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. ‘Assault on a police officer, very serious offence. That whiz-bang barbie of his has my blood all over it.’
Tess put her drink down and crunched an ice cube between her teeth. ‘Don’t get too comfortable. I’ve got something to show you.’
Jim Buckley had taken a keen interest in somebody over to his left. He’d looked over that way four times in less than two minutes. Whoever Jim was interested in, he or she was off-screen and outside the frame offered by the pub security camera. Tess found it on disk two about a quarter of the way in: the time code said it was 8.46 on Friday evening. Jim Buckley still had about three or four hours to live. On their way fast-forwarding to this point Tess had also pointed out Riri Yusala and his companions shepherding her daughter Melissa and her friend out of the pub. A look passed between Tess and Cato, no words needed. After the first unsubtle stare, the following glances to Buckley’s left were lingering but seemingly casual, discreet. Tess described the looks as being like those of a man trying not to seem like he’s staring down your cleavage. At which point Tess had smiled enigmatically and sat back up from the position she’d been in. Cato realised he’d been busted. He wondered if he’d driven through an invisible cloud of libido recently. He put his head back and dabbed at his nose to remind her that he was, after all, out of sorts.
A short while later, three and a half minutes to be exact, Jim Buckley finished his drink and left the picture. He returned twelve minutes later and made straight for a new position at the bar over to the right of frame.
‘He orders his drink and...’ Tess paused the footage, ‘there. He nods to someone off-screen, male I reckon.’
‘Why male?’
‘It’s a blokey nod. Reserved, a “how’s-the-ute” nod. Happy to strike up a conversation but don’t care if you don’t. That kind of nod.’
Cato was impressed and a little scared, he knew he didn’t stand a chance of hiding anything from intuition like that. They’d moved on from gin to coffee. Tess sipped hers and winked at him like old times.
‘There’s more.’
She fast-forwarded a minute or two. Jim Buckley was now half in, half out the right bottom edge of the frame and facing the person off-screen. The body movements suggested conversation. Buckley then turned to the bar and ordered another drink, his own Jim Beam and Coke still over half full. A barmaid’s hand delivered a middy of beer and Jim passed it off-screen.
‘Buckley shouting a round: official, on the record.’ Cato could have wisecracked a bit more but he remembered he was talking about a dead man.
Tess fast-forwarded again. ‘After a few minutes more the conversation ceases and Buckley retrieves his seat by the rear wall. He doesn’t look in that direction again for the rest of the evening.’ Tess found the spot she wanted. ‘At 11.49, pub almost empty by now, Jim leaves.’
They watched him finish his drink, scrape loose change into the palm of his hand and pocket it. Unsteadily now, after eight bourbon and Cokes, he nods towards the bar and exits left of screen. Across the road from the pub is the path that leads him down to the groyne. A hundred-metre walk in the rain across wet gravel and potholes will bring him to the short wooden fishing jetty which points west across the bay to the national park. There somebody will cave his skull in with a lump of jagged rock the size of a soccer ball. As they watched the last of the patrons leave the pub from right to left across the screen, Cato and Tess saw him
at the same time. Tess pressed pause. Slightly blurred by the freezing of the frame, there was still no doubt about the short, wiry man in the beanie: Billy Mather, Herman the Hermit from Starvation Bay.
‘Coincidence?’ Cato didn’t even believe it himself.
Tess sat back and took a long gulp from her cooling coffee. ‘The usual line is that there’s no such thing. That’s the line the Mick Hutchenses of this world take. How much of the case against Justin Woodward is “coincidence”?’
Cato recounted what he’d gleaned from the file. ‘Forensics; Buckley’s hair on Woodward’s jeans; phone calls between Buckley and Woodward; drug traces in the van; and last but not least, he was dobbed in by Riri Yusala.’
‘Pretty-Boy, now there’s a reliable witness. A drug pusher and probable date rapist facing several years in the clink and deportation at the end.’
‘But what about the forensics?’ Cato insisted.
Tess nodded, conceding the point, then frowned. ‘The forensics, however rubbery, are usually good for getting juries over the line. But if they had that from day one why did they release Woodward in the first place? Surely the phone records and the forensics should have been enough to hold him?’
Cato wasn’t familiar enough with the case to answer that question. His head was throbbing and he had an early morning search party to organise.
Tess started clearing glasses and cups away. Cato stood up to help her and wobbled; he’d stood up too quickly, not a good idea when you’ve recently been head-butted. Tess put out an arm to steady him and their eyes locked. They leaned in to each other; his hot breath on her face, his hand cupping her neck below her ear, fingers stroking her hair.
