by Alan Carter
‘Mr H.’
He ducked and felt a glancing blow off the side of his neck. Mundine was using a hammer. Ducking again, another one came to the shoulder. He lifted his arms to fend off the attack, felt a burning sensation along the bottom of his forearm. He bowed his head, aware he was already losing it. He could see his blood mixing with the rain on the ground, lots of it, flowing freely with the thinning medication.
Don’t bleed. You might never stop.
The sound of footsteps and voices approaching through the bush. Flashlights, several of them, a few hundred metres away.
The blows stopped. A whisper in his ear and Mundine’s familiar sour-milk breath smell. ‘We’re not finished yet, Mr H. Let’s be getting you back inside. Quiet now, think of that lovely family of yours.’
Hutchens was lifted by his collar, his own Glock pressed into his neck.
Bill was waiting at the front door. There was momentary confusion as he tried to register the changed situation. It was all the time Mundine needed to shoot him.
‘Shot fired.’
With those words over Dave’s UHF, the siege began. By the time Cato and the remaining contingent arrived, the house was surrounded and a cordon had been established a hundred metres either way. The nearest house was empty. The one beyond that, with a yapping labradoodle, was just beyond the cordon. Dave summoned the owner, a young woman in a zebra-patterned onesie.
‘What’s its name?’
She bent down to hug the animal. ‘His name is Jezza.’
‘Quieten Jezza or he dies.’
Jezza was taken inside.
A tarpaulin, pilfered from the shed of the empty house, had been placed over the body of the young Augusta officer. His colleagues, angry and upset, were channelling their emotions into practical activities – driving, or chugging across river, back to town to get help. Already, across the Blackwood, the flashing lights of the ambulance and fire truck illuminated the night. Here at the scene any spare vehicles, except for Jason’s which would be needed for forensic testing, had been placed strategically with headlights blazing to light up as much of the property as possible.
TRG Dave’s mood was in a downward spiral. ‘This is fucking hopeless. A siege, in a storm, in a power outage, on an isolated property with no mobile coverage. Is somebody taking the piss?’
The usual hi-tech siege paraphernalia – communications, monitoring equipment, sniper rifles et cetera – were all in a storeroom in Perth. They did have their UHF radios, guns, some stun and gas grenades, and a plan of the property had been downloaded to Dave’s iPad before the signal loss. All they could do, for now, was lock it down and wait for help to arrive. Unless of course something kicked off in the house before that.
‘What then?’ said Cato.
‘You come up with a plan, Santa.’ Dave issued orders to some underlings. ‘And I’ll take it into consideration.’
‘Do we have a megaphone?’
‘No. You could try shouting when the wind drops a bit.’
Cato gave in. He took to fretting about Hutchens and his family instead.
Hutchens wouldn’t stop bleeding. The stain was spreading out over the rug. Bill lay slumped by the front door. As far as Hutchens could tell, he was dead, or not far from it. The room was no longer in darkness with the fire in the grate and the headlights blazing through the windows.
‘Party time,’ said Mundine, thumbing out the window. ‘Your mates are here.’
After being ordered to draw the curtains, Marjorie, Melanie and Anne crowded together on the couch. Melanie sobbed while the other two looked fearful and murderous at the same time.
Mundine occupied the armchair, Bill’s favourite, by the fire and prodded the flames with a poker, the end glowing red. The Glock was resting on his lap and he’d brought out a bottle of red and offered it around. No takers. ‘I love it down here.’
‘David, this has to end.’ Hutchens was faint from the beating and from blood loss.
‘It will, Mr H. Soon enough.’ Mundine took a swig from the bottle and wiped his mouth. ‘We used to come here when I was a kid. Me, Mum, Paulie. Paulie had a caravan in that park just over the river.’
‘Yeah?’ said Hutchens, not particularly interested. Trying to keep from passing out. Trying to see some way of changing the situation. ‘Uncle Paulie was it? One of your mum’s boyfriends?’
‘One time we stayed in the caravan and this possum was thumping around on the roof, all night.’ A lazy, contented smile. ‘We didn’t sleep a wink. Paulie went mad, grumping around all the next day. He wanted to kill the possum, set a trap or something. I wouldn’t let him. He gave me a real belting.’
‘Mum didn’t mind?’
‘Mum wasn’t there.’
Hutchens started concentrating.
Mundine was rummaging in his backpack. ‘I met Paulie again a few years later. He took a while to recognise me. I wasn’t the same little kid he remembered.’ A coil of rope came out of the bag, followed by a knife, a screwdriver, and a roll of electrician’s tape. He lined them up on the floor next to the blood-soaked hammer. ‘We had a nice little reunion, chatted about old times.’ He hummed. ‘Like yesterday once more.’
Hutchens lifted his chin towards the display of goodies. ‘Got some renos in mind, Davey?’
‘Of sorts.’ He pulled out a chisel and added it to his collection on the floor. ‘By the time I got to Hillsview I knew the drill. Mr S. liked that. He spotted me straight away, knew where I’d been. He knew I was the one for him.’
‘This is all about you and me, isn’t it, Davey?’ Hutchens nodded towards his family on the sofa. ‘They’re not part of this. Send them away, then you can get down to business.’
A soft whimper from that part of the room.
‘Do you know what it took for me to come and ask for your help that day?’
‘I do now.’
‘It was my fourteenth birthday. I’d decided enough was enough. It had to stop. Mum had never stopped Paulie. The other staff at Hillsview had never stopped Mr S. But that day I would end it. With your help, Mr H.’
‘I’m sorry, David. I really am.’
‘That’s how society’s meant to work, isn’t it? The strong protect the weak from evil. That’s right isn’t it?’
‘Sounds like a good idea.’
‘When I got back he knew where I’d been. He knew nothing was going to happen to him. He knew I was all alone.’ A tear rolled down Mundine’s face. ‘He’d always known. That’s why he picked me in the first place.’ Mundine wiped his eyes. ‘He hurt me really bad that day. Made me bleed.’
He picked up the gun, strode over to Hutchens and pistol-whipped him. Then he took the tape and wrapped it around Hutchens’ mouth. He kicked him in the head before going back to get the rope.
‘We have to go in.’
They’d all heard one of the women scream. TRG Dave shook his head at Cato. ‘He’s armed and he’s nuts. We have no idea what’s going on in there. It was a one-off yelp. He probably just hit or threatened someone. Unless we hear more evidence of it really turning to shit we need to hold our nerve.’
‘It could be hours before the techs arrive. We can’t just sit here.’
‘We have to.’ Dave tossed a look at a muscled geek sitting under a flapping tarp. He was nursing a laptop and muttering expletives at the heavens. ‘Tristran’s trying to tap into the emergency band so we can talk to them on the mobiles. Meantime, sit tight. I promise you, if it really goes off we’ll be in there.’
‘Show me the property plan.’
‘Magic word?’
‘Please.’
Dave brought it up on his iPad. The living room, where smoke curled from a chimney and where the yelp had come from, was at the front of the house. It and the kitchen dining area were connected in an open-plan layout. A short central corridor led towards the back of the house with bedrooms coming off either side. At the back, the bathroom and laundry. Vehicle headlights illuminated the front and sides of the prop
erty but the rear was inaccessible to vehicles and still in gloom. Cato knew Dave had stationed four of his squad plus the two uniforms from Nannup around the back. They would each have their flashlights trained on the rear doors and windows.
‘The occupants can’t come out without being seen.’ Dave powered down his tablet. ‘We’ve got it covered.’
‘And if it does go pear-shaped?’
‘Doors down, guns blazing, fingers crossed.’
Cato gave a terse nod of thanks and stepped back out into the rain. He knew Dave was probably right but that didn’t make it any easier.
There was another yelp from inside.
‘Shush,’ said Mundine.
The women were now trussed up together, the rope wound around them all and tape covering their mouths. Anne Coucher had used her remaining tape-free seconds well.
‘You’re a cowardly piece of shit and you’re going to die by morning.’
She’d received a punch in reply. The outraged yelp had come from Marjorie on her mum’s behalf.
‘There,’ he’d said, once he finished tying them together. ‘Like a bunch of flowers. Lovely.’
Hutchens felt dizzy and very tired. Blood continued to drain from his various cuts and abrasions, and, as the doctors had warned, it just wouldn’t stop. Would he bleed out and die? He didn’t know how long he had left.
‘When you’re alone in the world you get plenty of time to think about stuff,’ said Mundine. ‘I worked a lot of things out. I worked out what that stink was coming off Mr S. It was leaking shit. Somebody must have been up him too when he was a kid. Gone at him so hard it stuffed up the plumbing.’
A second coil of rope came out of the bag and was wound around Hutchens’ arms and legs until he was hogtied. Utterly helpless, just the way Mundine intended it. Hutchens made a gagging noise. Mundine pulled the tape away.
‘What’s that, Mr H.?’
‘I can’t breathe. I’m dying.’
‘And?’
‘You know you’re not walking away from this, don’t you?’
‘I know that. None of us will be walking out of here. That’s the point.’
Hutchens saw his daughter’s eyes fill with terror. It was heartbreaking. He shook his head sadly. ‘Here’s me thinking for a while you were smarter than you looked.’
‘Yeah? Hostage situations 101: this the wind-up is it?’
‘A nice little bit of blackmail money from yours truly. Some compo from the Inquiry. And as a bonus you get to load me with Sinclair’s murder. Sweet as. Now you’ve blown it all with that temper of yours.’
Mundine snorted. ‘Money? What do I need that for? You reckon when I was lying there covered in Sinclair’s stink I was thinking jeez this’ll be a good little earner some day? Fucking idiot.’ He picked up the hammer. ‘As for the Inquiry – bit of a laugh, nothing more. You were the last on my list. My job’s just about done. Who cares after that? I’ve already had the worst happen to me.’
Out of the corner of his eye Hutchens could see movement on the couch. The rope was unravelling. Marjorie twisting and stretching her hands and arms. Keep mad boy talking.
‘What happened at the Mundaring pub that night?’
‘I was in Sinclair’s car. He gave me a packet of chips and a Coke and told me to wait while he had a beer or two. I was fine with that. Happy to sit there and bleed my arse out on the seat.’ He grabbed the bottle of red and took a swig. ‘Later on you took a swing at him in the car park. Pissed as but you landed a couple and put him down. Nice work. Then you got in your car and left. I took my chance and finished the cunt off with a brick from the builder’s skip.’
‘How did he end up at John Forrest?’
‘I nicked a shovel from the tradies’ stash and drove him up. I was fourteen, Mr S. used to take me for “driving lessons” up there if he wanted a bit of privacy and the romance of the open air. Torched his car back in Guildford later, burned a treat.’ He shifted the hammer to his right hand, took the chisel in his left and crouched down beside Hutchens. ‘So now you know everything, Mr H. You can die happy.’
Marjorie smacked him full force across the side of the head with the poker. ‘You talk too much, fuckwit,’ she said.
28
Thursday, August 29th.
The storm had passed. Sun flickered on the still waters of the Blackwood and a pod of dolphins broke the surface, their spray hanging in the air. By the river’s edge, half a dozen pelicans waited patiently for the remnants as an angler gutted his catch on a wooden bench.
By dawn the scene had been pretty much cleared and left to forensics. Both Hutchens and Bill Coucher had been medivaced by the Flying Doctor Service up to Royal Perth. Bill’s gunshot wound to the stomach was life-threatening and the next twenty-four hours would be critical. Hutchens’ blood loss had been stemmed and would be carefully replenished in a fine balancing act between the specific need to avoid clotting around his angioplasty and the general need of his body to have some blood in it. Cato left the details to the docs and hoped for the best. Hutchens’ family were being put up in the Augusta Motel ahead of some questioning by detectives brought down from Bunbury. The young Augusta cop, Jason, would have his post-mortem later that day.
David Mundine was under observation and armed guard in Margaret River hospital and would be transferred back to Perth at the earliest opportunity. His ear had taken the brunt of the blow and that may have helped avert catastrophic brain damage, but the hot poker had left an ugly mushy wound badly in need of plastic surgery. From the little Cato had gleaned from Hutchens during the ambulance ride to the airstrip, Major Crime would hopefully be enjoying a conversation with Mundine about the remains in John Forrest National Park.
TRG Dave and his crew had already been summoned back to Perth for another crisis and the plane would be leaving the airstrip in half an hour if Cato wanted a lift. He did, although a few days holiday in Augusta seemed very appealing right now. The river had a hypnotic, calming quality and the air was clean and crisp. The dolphin pod surfaced again and the baby did a little leap. For no good reason, it seemed, except that maybe it was just good to be alive.
After landing at Jandakot, Cato was dropped off at home. He caught up on sleep for the rest of the morning, surfacing around 1 p.m. There were some missed calls on his phone: Deb Hassan, Chris Thornton, Rory Driscoll, and Jane. He spooned some bircher muesli into a bowl, added milk and called Jane.
‘Jake broke his grounding.’
‘How?’
‘He went to Stef’s house after school yesterday. Didn’t get home until nearly seven.’
‘What did you say to him?’
‘I asked him his reasons. He gave none. I said I’d be talking to you.’
‘What did he say about that?’
‘Nothing. Shrugs. Who cares. That kind of stuff.’
‘So we extend the grounding and withdraw more privileges.’
‘Like?’
‘I don’t know. Guitar lessons? Weekend basketball? Take them away from him.’
‘The only positive things he does with his spare time. Is that a good idea?’
‘Good point.’ Cato didn’t have any magic solutions, neither did Jane. ‘How about two weeks added on to the grounding and I’ll talk to him again over the weekend.’
‘What about?’
‘Dunno. I’ll try to find out what he values in life so I can snatch it away from him.’
Jane laughed. ‘Don’t forget it’s Father’s Day next week. You might want to be careful or you won’t get any new socks.’
They signed off. He finished his muesli, downed a coffee, and caught the CAT bus into work. He didn’t need parking hassles or anything else challenging today. He intended to tread water for the afternoon and have an early night tonight.
At the office his first port of call was DI Spittle to update him on the events of the last twenty-four hours.
‘You made the right decision, even if the TRG weren’t needed in the end.’ Spittle spun his
chair away from his laptop to give full attention. ‘Is Mick okay?’
‘They seem pretty confident he will be. His father-in-law’s a different matter. His guts got pretty messed up by the bullet apparently. We’ll know soon enough.’
‘How about you?’
‘Tired. Got a couple of hours this morning.’
‘Everything’s pretty much under control here. Usual stuff overnight plus a cabbie got robbed and bashed. Tamil bloke, he’d just finished a twelve-hour shift. But we’ve got the likely culprits on cab-cam and we’re picking them up this arvo.’
‘How bad is he?’
‘The driver? In hospital, may lose an eye. That’s what you get for working hard and trying to provide for your family. The ones who did it have a history, white trash scumbags from way back.’
‘Judging by the polls, their day is at hand, apparently.’
Spittle smiled grimly. ‘That’s politics, son. None of my business.’
They parted ways and got on with their respective days. Chris Thornton was hovering by Cato’s desk. Yes, said Cato, the boss is going to be okay. And me too. Thornton was glad to hear it. He had more good news.
‘Lisa Gangemi is alive and well and living in Sydney.’
‘How did you find her?’
‘She found us. She phoned in after she heard from family that we were looking for her.’
Lisa Gangemi was petrified of David Mundine and had kept moving and changing her identity even though, as far as could be ascertained from his travel movements, he hadn’t tried very hard to find her. But she badly missed her home and family and had ABC WA news bookmarked on her computer. That morning’s report of Mundine’s arrest was the best news she’d had in years.
