by Alan Carter
‘Phoebe Li?’
‘Phoebe?’ The nonchalance was a bit too nonchalant. ‘What makes you think she’s involved?’
‘She had Lara killed. She’s daddy’s little girl and daddy has a lot of money at stake in that development.’ Cato’s focaccia and Driscoll’s salad arrived. Cato took a bite, savouring the grilled eggplant, pesto and activated almonds. He had a Mars bar waiting in his desk drawer as back-up. ‘And she was having it away with Yu Guangming. All in all, I’d say she’s an ethically challenged individual.’
‘Yeah,’ conceded Driscoll. ‘She’s a dangerous bitch, all right.’
‘So?’
‘So you’re better informed than I thought and here’s me thinking I was the one and true font. Your mate from yesterday, Guido, is he your new oracle?’
‘Classified.’ Cato had wanted to be able to say that to Driscoll.
‘Touché. I did remember him a few hours later. I’d met him at a nightclub in Shanghai some time back. He was on the arm of the lovely Phoebe.’
‘So is Phoebe behind all this?’
‘Dunno, mate.’ Driscoll prodded his salad despondently. ‘But if you’re thinking of rattling anyone’s cage, it may as well be hers.’
Cato studied him. The guy would ace it in a poker game.
‘How are you today, David?’
David Mundine kept his eyes closed and pretended he hadn’t heard.
‘David?’
His ear throbbed. He hadn’t seen it yet, it was covered by a protective gauze. But he had seen the faces of the nurses whenever they changed the dressings. Disgust.
‘David?’
He opened an eye but he already knew who it was. It was the lady detective wanting to know about the collection of bones from John Forrest. She had somebody with her. A young bloke, dark curls and big lashes. Peter’s type.
‘Umm?’
‘DI Pavlou, we spoke briefly yesterday.’
He nodded weakly and asked for some water. Adonis did the honours.
‘Are you up to a few more questions today, David?’
He gave them a brave wan smile.
‘This is Detective Constable Fernandez. I’ll leave you in his hands.’
‘Sure,’ said Mundine.
She left. Fernandez stuck out a hand. ‘Joe.’
‘David,’ said David.
Cato wanted to know what it was that he’d done recently that had changed the game. He tried to plot out a timeline. It was only just over a week since his return from China. It seemed so much more. During that time they’d buried Lara Sumich and faced Hutchens’ nemesis in the swampy lowlands of East Augusta. What else? On the instructions of DI Pavlou they’d sheeted the Tan murders away to Yu Guangming and archived the case. But Cato had kept digging. He’d dug into Wongan Holdings and Suzhou Dragon. Who knew he had? Driscoll for sure, otherwise it had been internet searches and the ACC profile. ACC. He’d asked Mystery Mike to earn his keep and look into O’Neill and Yu. The bloke hadn’t got back to him and, in the distraction of the Mundine business, Cato had let it slide. He picked up the phone and dialled.
‘That you, Michael?’
‘Who’s this?’
‘Philip Kwong. Have you had a chance to follow up on that stuff I requested?’
‘No.’
‘Busy?’
‘Not especially.’
‘So?’
‘So I ran it past both Sandra Pavlou and my supervisors and they confirmed that your request wasn’t authorised.’
‘No help forthcoming then?’
‘Sorry.’
He ended the call and added Michael to his list of suspects.
He’d also had a visit from Guido Caletti who’d tipped him off about Phoebe Li and Yu Guangming. Almost immediately after that, he’d received the warning from Driscoll. Coincidence?
What else?
Matthew Tan? Cato still wasn’t convinced about the stowaway but, as yet, he could see no link between that and somebody in China wanting to pass on a warning via Driscoll.
In Cato’s view it had to be the Yu, Phoebe, and O’Neill nexus.
No further forward.
Reverse angle and rewind. Back to the basic question of the murder. What could Francis Tan have known, or said, or done, that warranted the slaughter of him and his family?
Cato dragged Francis Tan’s phone records out of the database once more.
This part of the investigation had fallen under the remit of Major Crime. The analysis of the phone data had been done by Detective Constable J. Fernandez with supervision from a Detective Sergeant P. MacMahon and sign-off by DI Pavlou. Calls and texts made and received had been itemised by date, time, duration and whether the person at the other end fitted into certain categories such as family, business, friend/associate, personal or other. Any anomalies such as extended duration or unusual times like middle of the night, or patterns such as repeated calls over a short period had been marked for follow up. Thomas Li and Guido Caletti came under the pink highlighter treatment as did Des O’Neill. In time, Guido and Des dropped off as Li became the focus. Email trails had been similarly analysed but these seemed a lot more carefully worded as if in anticipation that someday someone might come looking.
Cato made himself a cuppa and settled in for the afternoon.
Mundine reckoned he had DC Joe Fernandez wrapped around his little finger. He was back to his twitchy victim persona. No, he couldn’t remember much of what happened. He was in this house down south with Mr H. and his lovely family and then the lights went out. No, he couldn’t explain how he got there or why. He’d taken this blow to the head with a red-hot poker. Lucky to be alive really. A dead cop called Jason? Don’t remember that. Peter Sinclair? Yes, he remembered Peter Sinclair, he was the dirty old man who had ruined his life. No, he didn’t know anything about John Forrest National Park. Mr H. said that? Really? Paul Morrison’s death in the Bassendean house fire? Who? Oh Paulie, Mum’s old boyfriend. Really? Shame.
‘So what happens next?’
‘That’s up to the boss, mate. But I’d expect some charges might follow and then you’ll get your day in court.’
‘Charges?’
‘There’s a lot of explaining to do. Mr H. … I mean DI Hutchens and his family didn’t get tied up or injured all by themselves, did they?’
‘S’pose not.’ Mundine rattled his handcuffed hand. ‘So this stays on, yeah?’
‘Yep.’
‘I should probably get a lawyer, eh?’
‘Might be an idea.’
‘Know any?’
‘Try Legal Aid.’ Fernandez gathered his things.
‘Is Mr H. okay?’
‘He will be.’
‘Good. That’s good.’
It was in studying the week preceding the murders that Cato picked up on a pattern of calls and corresponding emails that, on paper, were explicable and seemingly innocuous. In hindsight they were anything but. It was late afternoon. Outside the light was dying and punters strode purposefully towards the pubs to launch their weekend. Jake would be dropped off tomorrow and Cato’s guts churned a little at the prospect of more domestic angst. But this was parenting, he told himself, the good and the bad. You had to nip this stuff in the bud or … what? Your offspring became the child of Satan, a little Matthew Tan bouncing bocce balls off the heads of innocent babes, a self-absorbed Zac Harvey trolling a dead girlfriend, a vengeful and murderous David Mundine stalking the night, or a vicious Phoebe Li erasing her enemies from existence. Maybe Cato was projecting a little too much here. Jake was a teenage boy who’d tried a bit of dope and bunked off school occasionally. Stop the presses. Anyway, that was tomorrow, this was now.
There were a number of calls on Tuesday 30th July between Francis Tan and Des O’Neill, and between Francis Tan and Thomas Li. It was forty-eight hours before Li and Yu Guangming would board that same flight to Perth. Just six days before the massacre of the Tan family in Port Coogee. There were four calls between Tan and O’Neill: the
first from Tan lasted just over six minutes, the second from O’Neill just under three minutes, the third from O’Neill less than a minute, and the last from O’Neill just fifteen seconds. All within a twenty-minute block commencing at breakfast time that morning. Almost immediately after the last of those calls from O’Neill, Tan had called Thomas Li. There were three calls between them over the remainder of that day, short ones, about the length of a left message. After that last phone message Tan had followed up with a short email to Li.
Looking forward to catching up with you on Monday. We have much to discuss.
And the reply from Li.
Indeed. Your proposal could save us all a lot of money. Onward and upward good friend!
Finally, at day’s end, an SMS from Des O’Neill to Tan. Initially erased but since retrieved by the techs.
Good luck, mate, you’ll need it
In the follow-up interview O’Neill had explained this as being about Tan’s upcoming fraught meeting with Li after the debacle of the FIRB decision against them. But the email exchange between Tan and Li did not seem especially fraught. If anything it was upbeat and optimistic.
Onward and upward good friend!
But what was it they were so upbeat about?
Cato’s reverie was interrupted by his mobile. It was his sister Mandy sounding flustered, at the end of her tether.
‘Dad wants a word. I’ll put him on.’
There was the inevitable faffing about as Mand explained the phone to her dad and helped him put it the right way up.
‘That you Philip? You there? Hello?’
‘What can I do for you, Dad?’
‘Fancy a nice walk?’
‘Sure, when suits?’
‘I’m ready now.’
Cato checked the time, late arvo, a howling wind outside. ‘No worries. Where do you want to go?’
‘My dad’s old vegie patch.’
Here we go. Cato found a smile and put it in his voice. ‘Give me half an hour, mate. Be right there.’
They were on the South Perth foreshore, Jack in his wheelchair, Cato pushing. Both were rugged up against the biting cold and threatening clouds. Across the wind-slapped Swan, the Perth city skyline was lighting up for the night and the ferry churned out through the foam towards Barrack Street jetty.
‘Just over there.’ Jack pointed and Cato pushed.
Mandy had been trying to juggle a screaming Bao, his recalcitrant siblings, and an insistent Jack. She was glad to see the back of at least one of them. ‘Don’t keep him out long. Just enough to catch his death.’
‘South Perth?’ said Cato, bewildered.
‘Try living with this nonsense twenty-four-seven,’ she’d muttered. Then guilt struck and she softened. She’d pecked Jack on the cheek. ‘Have a good time, Dad. See you for dinner.’
They parked up near a gum tree that gave some flimsy shelter from the wind. Cato sat on a bench using himself as an additional windbreak for the old man. Jack seemed to be turning blue but the light in his eyes and the energy in his voice said ‘Cold? What cold?’
‘My dad’s vegie patch was just here, about the size of Amanda’s backyard.’
‘What did Grandad grow then?’
‘Spinach, cabbage, lettuces, tomatoes, you name it. I used to help him out, dig some holes, pop the seeds in, do the watering.’
‘When was this?’ Cato was trying to picture it, a sea of market gardens, before the skyscrapers and mansions arrived. Grandad was dead before Cato was born, he’d never known him.
‘Long time ago. I was just a little kid. They called him Jack too, you know that?’
‘Grandad?’
‘Yeah. They called nearly all the Chinamen “Jack”. Easier for them, I suppose. They didn’t have to think, didn’t have to try and pronounce the real names.’
‘Jack,’ said Cato, squeezing his old man’s frozen hand.
‘His real name was Xiaolong. Little Dragon.’
‘Kwong Xiaolong,’ said Cato. ‘What about you, what was yours?’
Jack Kwong seemed not to have heard him. ‘Dad loved this place, he spent every spare minute down here. He used to supply the vegie markets, made a good living from it, too. No choice, there was no other work going. They didn’t like the Chinese, not for a job, but happy to buy from us, if the price was right.’
The old man was shivering. Cato needed to get him somewhere warm. ‘What do you reckon, Dad? Time for tea? Watch the news?’
‘They took the vegie patch off him, you know. Off all the Chinese. Some new government policy, “Whites Only”. They gave it to some Slav. No compensation, no nothing.’
‘What’d he do?’
A shake of the old man’s head. ‘He drank, cried, belted us all. Then one night he filled his pockets with rocks and walked into the river.’
‘Jesus,’ said Cato.
‘Not interested in my Chinese name after that. Just Jack, that’s me.’
Cato clicked the brakes off the old man’s wheelchair and took him in out of the cold.
30
Saturday, August 31st.
Cato got the call just after 6 a.m. It was from Kenneth, Mandy was too upset. Little Bao had gone for one of his early morning wanders and tried to do a ‘boo scare’ on Pops. But Pops wouldn’t wake up. Kenneth, an orthodontist, had some basic medical training, enough to confirm the obvious. The GP had been summoned to do the official business of pronouncement. Younger sister Susan was also on her way and Mandy was steeling herself for the day to come. Would Cato like to join them and say his farewells?
Yes.
Old Jack. Gone.
He showered and called Jane and they agreed Jake was probably best off staying with her for the weekend. The big father–son talk could wait.
‘If he wants to say his goodbyes to Pops I can take him over if you like. Or we could all meet up?’ Jane’s voice cracked. Cato recalled she’d got on well with her father-in-law in the good days. The old man was an incurable flirt and she enjoyed his silly jokes and the twinkle in his eye.
‘Sure,’ said Cato. ‘We’ll play it by ear.’
When he arrived at his sister’s house, the doctor was just leaving.
‘Heart failure. He died in his sleep.’ The doc zapped the locks on her Prius. ‘I hope I go the same way when the time comes.’ An empathetic half-smile and she was gone.
Had last night’s antarctic stroll on the South Perth foreshore killed the old man off? Cato went inside. He did the hugs and kisses. Mandy had come over slightly regal, the undisputed matriarch now. Susan had a cry into his shoulder. Kenneth put the kettle on again. The kids, even little Bao, were watching Video Hits with the sound respectfully low. Gangstas strutted and their harems twerked while the grown-ups discussed funeral arrangements. Cato went down the hallway to look in on the old man.
In death Jack Kwong seemed slightly grey and caved in. Cato kissed him on the forehead and laid a hand on his chest. His eyes blurred.
Just Jack, that’s me.
Cato sat with his father for a while. It was peaceful in there, the room dimmed by the drawn curtains, the murmurs from the kitchen. A sudden jolt. Was the recording device still in place? Was someone, even now, listening in to the discussions of the funeral arrangements or had the bugging the other night been a one-off done by remote? He hadn’t told Mandy about it and he didn’t fancy the idea now. Sweeping the house for bugs, at a time like this. It could wait. If the bastards wanted to play today back to him in the small hours they could. He was coming after them.
He tried to recapture the serenity of the moment but it had flown. His final communion with his dad had been poisoned.
The rest of the weekend would be a numb blur of phone calls and arrangements, hugs and tears, endless pots of tea and coffee, and memories, some shared, others private. At some point the wine came out and Mandy got maudlin.
‘I didn’t mean it about hoping he’d catch his death,’ she sobbed. ‘You know that, don’t you, Pip?’
‘I h
adn’t realised you and Ken were in such a hurry for the inheritance. Kids school fees gone up again?’
She giggled through her tears and punched Cato’s arm. They toasted the old man once again.
The funeral was set for Wednesday morning at Karrakatta and the wake would be held at Mandy’s. Jane and Jake had called round later on Saturday to pay their respects. Cato was pleased to see his son turn on the charm and respect for the rellies and for the occasion. It was a good sign that the kid had enough social skills to still take others into consideration and reserve the shittiness just for his folks. That was fine. It was the kids who failed to moderate their behaviour for anyone that were the worry.
On that same Saturday, David Mundine was released from hospital, appeared briefly before a magistrate, and was then remanded to Hakea Prison ahead of a further court appearance on Tuesday. At Hakea he was put into the hospital block to continue monitoring of his burnt ear and possible concussion. His Legal Aid brief had been useless. A stuttering nervous limp-dick fresh out of uni. The tosser had failed to argue the case for bail, had been playing constant catch-up on his notes and his case load, trying to give all of his weekend clients the full benefit of his two-minute consultations. The prick had failed to realise that Mundine was the most important and that all the other low-life losers could get fucked. David knew now he should have refused to go to Legal Aid. All they did was shunt you along the conveyor belt. It wasn’t as if he was short on cash, Mr H.’s money was still pretty much untouched.
So here he was. Hakea. A con. Just like his mum. The hell with that.
He needed to get himself a proper lawyer. One who would see him released at that next court session on Tuesday. He had some unfinished business to attend to.
31
Monday, September 2nd.
Cato looked in on Hutchens in Freo Hospital on his way to work. He passed on the news about his father going aloft.
‘Sorry to hear that, mate.’
Hutchens was looking better. His skin was a healthier colour and his bruises were past their worst.
