by Alan Carter
‘That’s a harsh judgement but it’s your prerogative, Mr Kwong. I already have all of the lots on my site pre-sold. I’m a developer, not a speculator. I build real homes for real people paying real money.’
‘Whatever. I didn’t come to hear a justification of your business methods. You said you had something to show me relating to the Tan killings.’
Li stood up from the bench, his back seemed to be giving him trouble. Cato noticed for the first time that Li looked old, today anyway. ‘Walk with me,’ said Li.
Cato did as he was asked. Li’s driver stepped out of the car and followed on foot. Cato saw that he was well built in that henchman kind of way with a smooth babyish face and bench press shoulders. There was something vaguely familiar about him but Cato couldn’t place it. So here they were: a ghost town, a ruthless entrepreneur, a potentially deadly sidekick, and a nosy and naïve Australian cop. Had Cato just handed himself over yet again as a walking loose end waiting to be snipped off? At times like this he missed Rory Driscoll.
‘You and Mr Driscoll did me a very good favour last night.’
Speak of the devil, thought Cato. ‘Are you talking about Yu Guangming?’
‘Of course, who else?’
‘I thought you’d never heard of him?’
‘Did I say that? I’m old, forgetful.’
‘So we’ve removed some of the competition for you?’
‘Not competition exactly. Yu was a very volatile, unpredictable man. Sometimes that can be a hindrance to business confidence.’ Li paused, as if they’d arrived somewhere meaningful.
They’d come to a sign on a fenced-off village green advertising properties for sale. The artist’s impression was of nondescript anywhere-houses, not particularly English in style. The name of this proposed complex was Cambridge Gardens. It was an offshoot of the original Thames Town and, according to the plan on the billboard, an enclave bridging the old development with Li’s much grander plan over the river. Cato had seen the like before on building sites from Hopetoun to Port Coogee, all over: promises of living the dream, sign here on the dotted line. Li’s driver took out a pack of cigarettes and fired one up: Double Happiness – Yu Guangming’s favourite brand. The driver blew smoke into the air, the very soul of nonchalance. He was looking everywhere but at Cato.
‘Anyway,’ said Li. ‘One good turn deserves another.’ He held his arm out in a revelatory tah-dah fashion.
The driver’s foot scraped the ground. His hand went into his pocket. A gust of wind rustled the trees and sun broke through the clouds, glinting off the windscreen of Li’s limousine.
With an angry quack the ducks flapped and rose and headed for an ungainly landing out on the river. Cato realised he was jumpy as hell. Everything seemed unreal, strange, and sinister yet at the same time there was some element of déjà vu. Then he saw it, saw what Li was getting at. On the sign advertising the Cambridge Gardens development there was a name he recognised. Li nodded and smiled and proceeded to fill in some of the jigsaw for him.
Five minutes later Cato had a pretty good idea who might be behind the Tan killings and perhaps why. All he had to do now was prove it. He’d also realised what was familiar about the driver. The smell of moisturising cream. He strolled over, making a ‘gimme a cigarette’ gesture. The driver dug into his jacket pocket, retrieved the pack, and looked up to offer Cato one. Cato headbutted him then drove his fist deep and high into the man’s gut.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ said Li.
‘Nearly finished,’ said Cato.
The driver lay on the road torn between gasping for breath and stemming the blood from his nose. Cato kicked him in the kidneys. ‘As a rule I tend not to kick a man while he’s down.’ He kicked him again. ‘But mate, you started it.’
He turned to Li. ‘Thanks for the tour and the tip. I’ll make my own way back. I noticed a Metro not far from here.’ He gestured at the man on the ground. ‘Maybe you’d like to ask your employee why he’s been moonlighting for Yu Guangming. Unless, of course, you already knew about that.’
20
Wednesday, August 21st.
The Shanghai sky was clear and blue and a fresh breeze kept everything comfortably cool. Under any other circumstances you might have called it a perfect day. Cato would accompany Lara Sumich’s body home on a flight due to leave in about six hours. It went via Hong Kong and would arrive in Perth early the next morning. He would be seated next to Lara’s father, the retired diplomat Oscar Sumich, who he’d met briefly the previous evening. On first impressions Sumich was a cold and aloof man but his stiff upper lip failed to mask the bewilderment and naked loss felt by any parent called upon to bury their own child. Early that morning Cato had caught a story in the English-language Shanghai Daily. Local billionaire Thomas Li Tonggui had reached an out-of-court settlement with the plaintiffs in the property development litigation, the late Richard Chan’s clients. Li was quoted as saying that he hoped this sad misunderstanding was now at an end and that everybody could move on to embrace a prosperous future. Tick, sorted. All Cato had left to do was to collect his stored luggage then head to the airport and get on the plane. But first he needed to say goodbye to Sharon Wang.
He was by the number one entrance gate to Zhongshan Park. And there she was in her black pyjamas stepping through some taiji moves with a tasselled sword in her hand. She looked beautiful. After a few minutes the group completed the sequence and she took a break, walking over to join him.
‘Nee ha,’ he said.
‘G’day.’ She leaned in and gave him a long soft kiss on the lips. So the chemistry hadn’t been all in his imagination. She smelled and felt wonderful.
He lightly touched her pyjama top. ‘What do you call this anyway?’
‘Taiji jimjams.’
‘Taiji jimjams?’
A nod. She did a great poker face. It took Cato a moment to register he was being had.
‘And this?’ he pointed to her sword.
‘Taijijian. It means…’
‘Tai chi sword?’
She nodded, grinning.
‘Taijijian,’ said Cato.
‘I love it when you talk Mandarin to me. Here let me show you something.’ She took his hand and led him over to the calligraphers. She said a few words to one of them and he chuckled and nodded, drawing some symbols on the flagstones.
‘What is it?’ Cato asked.
‘Your name: Kwong Qianping.’
The calligrapher went a step further, retrieving a bottle of ink and a sheet of paper from his backpack and drawing the symbols on it for Cato to keep.
‘He says it’s a gift.’
‘Xie xie,’ said Cato, deeply moved.
Sharon led him to an empty bench nearby. ‘I got an email from my dad. He hasn’t been able to find out anything about you Kwongs. He reckons your name is common as muck.’
Cato smiled and held up the calligraphy. ‘This’ll keep me going for now.’
‘On the subject of names, something interesting came up on the bloke they shot at the airport.’ Lara’s assassin, a young man still in his teens. ‘No apparent connections with Yu Guangming but it turns out he was the son of a man crippled by Li’s chengguan thugs.’
‘Jesus.’ Cato shook his head. ‘Little Zhou.’
‘You know him?’
‘We met briefly in the expat bar on the day of the attack. Chan introduced us.’
‘The mother told us they’d been visited by a representative from the property development company, offering some serious compensation in return for a favour.’
‘Was it Li?’
‘No. A woman. The mum showed us a business card. It said “Li Xiaodao”. The name means filial piety or obligation. In short, Li’s dutiful daughter.’
‘Phoebe.’
‘Creepily “xiao dao” also means “little knife”.’
The essence of tuishou is that you dissolve an oncoming force before striking a blow…
Cato thought about
his strange meeting with Li in Thames Town. He had believed that Li really was, in his own way, trying to do the right thing. Now this. ‘Do you reckon Tommy Li knew, or was Phoebe going solo?’
‘There’s a Chinese tradition of blaming everything on evil bitches. If you believe some people, Mao’s Cultural Revolution was all just an honest mistake and the real blame lay with Madame Mao. Complete bullshit of course.’ Wang shook her head. ‘Even if Li didn’t know on this occasion, he created her.’
‘We’re never going to see justice for this, are we?’ said Cato bitterly.
‘The one thing I’ve learned during my time in China is to assume nothing. The prisons and cemeteries are full of high-flyers who thought they were untouchable. According to Rory, there’s already rumblings in Beijing and talk of a move on the Lis.’
‘I’ll watch this space,’ said Cato, unconvinced. ‘Speaking of Driscoll, what’s he up to?’
‘Keeping his head down until you’ve gone, I think.’
‘Good move,’ said Cato. ‘Do you think he already knew about Phoebe Li when he shot Yu Guangming?’
‘Who knows what goes through that man’s mind. Rumour has it that he’s being headhunted for a clandestine job in Java for the next government’s Stop the Boats campaign.’
God forgive us, thought Cato.
She stood up and led him by the hand. ‘I’m sick of talking about work. Dance with me.’
They joined a group of people slow-waltzing to an old Chinese love song. Cato held Sharon close, not wanting to let her go. He tried to relax into the music, into the moment but there was a tightness in his chest. Everything blurred. He saw Sharon looking up at him, felt the tears on his cheeks.
She placed her hand on his chest. ‘Don’t let the manner of Lara’s death define her life, or yours. Or this city.’ She tilted her chin towards their dancing companions. ‘Look at these people around you. Those older ones, they’ve witnessed, experienced, maybe even done, some terrible things during their time. But here they are every day, dancing, chatting, exercising. Living life, now.’
Cato looked at them. She was right but it didn’t stem the flow of his tears.
And maybe that was not a bad thing.
PART 3
21
Thursday, August 22nd.
The atmosphere at Freo cop shop was as gloomy as the weather. DIs Pavlou and Hutchens invited Cato in for a chat. There seemed to be a rare air of party unity about them.
‘How are you?’ asked Pavlou, pouring him a coffee from the plunger. Did he detect traces of recent tears in her red-rimmed eyes?
‘Okay.’
‘Really?’ said Hutchens. ‘You don’t look it.’
Cato could have said the same for Hutchens. He still seemed overly pink, tight and shiny. Like a blister ready to burst. Cato himself was covered in bruises and abrasions and he felt emotionally empty. But it was all relative. ‘Yep,’ he said.
‘You want counselling, any of that shit?’
‘I’m fine for now, boss. I’ll let you know if I’m not.’
The coffee tasted bitter to Cato, then again, so did everything else. He’d been travelling all night but managed a few hours’ sleep in the relative comfort of Business Class. Oscar Sumich’s conversation had been limited to the occasional ‘excuse me’ as he went to the toilet. Each time he would return with his face freshly scrubbed of the tears he must have allowed himself in the privacy of the cramped cubicle. Cato wasn’t tired. There was a nervous, angry energy that wouldn’t let him rest.
Lara’s funeral was set for the following Saturday, the day after tomorrow. Full bells and whistles and top brass. The results of the Chinese post-mortem and police investigation weren’t going to be challenged by the family so there was no need for any further delay. They wanted the whole sorry matter expedited. That morning there’d been a two-page spread in the West with big colour pics of the photogenic Lara Sumich, a potted history of her career including the dramatic manhunt two years earlier when she’d collared Dieudonne, the former child soldier turned hit-man, along with his rogue cop handler. There were testimonials from her colleagues and family to the effect of what a warm-hearted and good person she was. It was a side of her Cato had rarely glimpsed, until recently. And a photo of her heartbroken fiancé, Farmer John.
‘So,’ said Pavlou. ‘Li?’
‘Like I said in my report, I really don’t think he’s behind it. He’s too big for that stuff. The losses incurred by Francis Tan were small change to him.’
‘Yu Guangming?’
‘He said not but I don’t believe him. He admitted to being on the scene, on the day.’
‘So if it was him, he’s dead. Case closed?’
‘It would wrap things up pretty neatly,’ agreed Cato, aware that any talk of Des O’Neill and the Wongan connection would be snuffed out unless and until he could offer more concrete supporting evidence.
‘But?’ said Pavlou.
‘There’s Matthew Tan’s mystery stowaway. I take it we haven’t found Matt or his passenger yet?’
‘Nah,’ said Hutchens.
‘How’s Lily?’ said Cato.
‘Recovering. Mum and Dad cut short their holiday in Mauritius to come back and look after her.’
‘Let’s make Matthew a priority then, shall we?’ said Pavlou. ‘His attack on Lily was probably just a domestic. And if he can explain the stowaway, or even just deny all knowledge, then we might be able to pin the Tan murders on Yu Guangming and file it away.’
Hutchens bristled. ‘Finding Matthew Tan has never not been a priority, Sandra.’
A reassuring pat on the hand. ‘Sure, Mick. But it would be good to give the Commissioner some good news ahead of Lara’s funeral, eh?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Hutchens, playing nice.
Sandra. Mick. If the entente got any more cordiale Cato thought he might puke.
Cato had other thoughts. He was happy enough to see Yu Guangming in the frame for the murders but there were other people who had some explaining to do. Here and in China. He opened up his laptop and summoned Francis Tan’s financial records from the investigation database. The folder included the Tan family’s individual and business bank and credit card statements, the Tan business balance sheets plus a flowchart and timeline of business deals and associations over the last five years. It looked very thorough. The geeks at the ACC had been busy.
According to the financial profile, things had started to go wrong for Francis Tan between two and three years ago. Before that his star had been on the rise as a result of his lucrative partnerships with Thomas Li in China and Des O’Neill in Australia. Li had a shopping list of property assets he was interested in and O’Neill and Tan between them had a good eye for a bargain and a persuasive manner for unlocking the riches of both urban and rural Western Australia. At his zenith Francis Tan would have had a personal wealth of around twenty million dollars. Then it began slipping through his fingers. A string of bad luck and bad decisions that commenced about three years earlier sent his business into a tailspin. But was it really just bad luck or did somebody have a hand in his downfall?
In Thames Town, that confected English ghost city on the outskirts of Shanghai, Thomas Li had drawn his attention to a sign advertising the bland Cambridge Gardens sub-development. One of the partners was Wongan Holdings. Wongan, at first glance, looked like a Chinese company but Cato had seen the name before, in this ACC profile. Wongan, as in Wongan Hills, the birthplace and company name for Des O’Neill’s business venture. According to Thomas Li, O’Neill had started spreading his wings about two years earlier, coincidentally the same time Francis Tan started his run of bad luck, and had taken an interest in property speculation in China. To do so O’Neill would have needed a Chinese partner but, according to Li, neither he nor Tan were involved. Cato had asked, so who then? Li had pointed to another partner on the hoarding, Suzhou Dragon Enterprises. Aka Yu Guangming.
Of course he only had Li’s word for that last connection. He need
ed the ACC or somebody to look into and confirm Yu’s connection to Suzhou Dragon. In the meantime Cato scanned the Tan financial profile once again looking for the hand of Des O’Neill and for a possible motive for murder.
Hutchens was sitting in the gloom of J. B. O’Reilly’s with a half of Kilkenny and a bulging backpack at his feet, the second instalment of the ten K Mundine had demanded by last Friday. Hutchens had concocted a bullshit story about cash flow to try to limit his risk but he was still three thousand down so far. It was a ‘good faith’ investment which he aimed to recoup from the fucker in due course. The seven K balance was once again to be handed over to the middleman, the Irish backpacker barman. His name was Dermot apparently and he had caught Hutchens’ eye meaningfully several times since handing over the drink. Once again, mid-afternoon, the place was as quiet as the proverbial. There were only two other patrons, the same two pissheads as last time. Mundine was taking a big risk letting a backpacker mind a bag full of cash for him. He either really trusted Dermot or he was a fucking idiot. So far, more’s the pity, the idiot theory hadn’t played out. But that made Dermot more interesting and potentially useful. A trawl of the files and public records and some words in the ear of local cops had failed to locate a home address for Mundine. The Inquiry paperwork had him as ‘No Fixed Abode’ and they seemed happy to work around that. Either way Hutchens wasn’t going to press them for the address of a major witness; it wouldn’t look too good. Dermot was the key and he had a shift break due in half an hour.
Mundine had slipped off the radar somewhat since last Friday. No more hysterical texts or threats. Maybe the first cash payment had restocked his medicine cabinet. For a while Hutchens harboured the faint hope that the prick had used the money to buy a bad batch of smack and OD’d in some filthy suburban hovel. No such luck. Just that morning a measured text had come through with a reminder and instructions for the next instalment. Hutchens downed his drink and made his move as per the agreed routine. He took his backpack up to the bar.
