Getting Warmer (26 page)

Hutchens sat back in his chair and folded his arms. ‘John?’

John did come clean, up to a point. He admitted passing on the Capo D’Orlando rendezvous details to the Apaches. Lara had chosen to let him know of her plans and for him to be her backup. Interesting. She’d trusted him over Hutchens and Cato. John claimed he hadn’t anticipated them actually killing Graham but it didn’t bother him that they had.

Hutchens shook his head. ‘Couldn’t you have just organised for our mob to pick him up instead? Maybe land him a smack or two
yourself if that was important?’

John looked semi-rueful. ‘It seemed more certain of a just outcome, more arm’s-length this way.’

‘Arm’s-length my arse. We’re implicated now. This is a crime, mate.’

John shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t worry about that too much.’ He then outlined his briefing to Lara and his tampering with CCTV evidence to help support the Graham suicide theory.

Cato repeated what was becoming his mantra. ‘The handcuffs?’

‘Lara was in the process of arresting Graham when the Apaches turned up. She was a witness, not a participant. But yes, it was her handcuffs that made sure Graham couldn’t get out of there once it all kicked off.’

‘No wonder she feels like shit,’ observed Hutchens. ‘So can you show good cause why I shouldn’t just do the right thing and pass all this on to a higher power?’

John laid his hands on the desk. ‘Busted. Two witnesses. Do whatever you need to do. But don’t you think I would have cleared it with someone further up the food chain first? I’m confident the higher powers would prefer you to stick to the suicide scenario. And the handcuffs? Well that just gets poor Lara into trouble, doesn’t it?’ He smirked. ‘The right thing? I hope both your careers are worth it.’

Hutchens was toying rather menacingly with a letter opener. Cato leaned forward. ‘Between these four walls, I’m inclined to agree with John, sir.’ The letter opener glinted in the late afternoon sun. ‘And I think there’s an opportunity for us here.’

Hutchens laid the sharp instrument back on the desk. ‘Well, well, Mr Truth and Justice, do go on.’

The water at South Beach was flat and clear. The sun was not long up but already there were pods of swimmers cutting the surface fifty metres out in deeper water. Cato dipped his head for a look at what was going on below. A few herring skittered away to the deep and some seaweed floated past. Along the sandy bottom the contours created by the steady movement of waves and tides left a mesmerising pattern. It was so peaceful and other-worldly: the water lapping and ticking, rays of sunlight, flickering shadows. A sense of calm and of time slowed down. Cato lifted his head and took a breath. He really should do this more often.

They had moved swiftly on Cato’s suggestions. John had reluctantly conceded that, yes, the Capo D’Orlando CCTV footage apparently ‘out of order’ at the time of the Colin Graham killing could be magically resurrected if necessary. That – along with witness testimony from Lara – could put the Apaches into the kind of trouble they didn’t need when they were on a pre-war footing so it made for good leverage. The first priority was to get them to back off from their personal threats against Cato and to patiently await the outcome of the forensic tests on Mazza in relation to the Wellard murder. Tick, sorted.

Next, Irskine would still need to come in for questioning on the Shellie–Wellard matter. If he and his lawyer cooperated and volunteered for interview the likelihood was that it would turn into an inconclusive he said – she said. That was expected and, in relative terms, acceptable. The victim was Wellard, so who cared? But appearances still counted, Irskine needed to play the game.

The main agenda item was a bigger ask but it might just be timely. They would know by midmorning whether it was on. Cato dived down again, enjoying the feel of his arms and legs moving strongly
underwater and a new looseness around the wound that signalled a return to wellbeing. Ahead of him a baby stingray, tan coloured and speckled with light blue spots, lifted from the sand and glided out into the shadows. Moments like this helped dissolve those dark thoughts about society going to the dogs. Life really was beautiful sometimes. Cato resurfaced – all was well with the universe. Then a stinger, transparent body no bigger than a thumbnail, wrapped its long tendrils around Cato’s upper arm and jolted him back into the real world.

There was a nice painting on the wall: an abstract mix of daubs and splashes in restful colours. Framed certificates too. The blinds were down but twisted to filter the morning sun in diffused horizontal lines. Polished jarrah floorboards with a large thick expensive rug in swirls of deep dark reds and ambers. A desk with obligatory laptop and a happy family photo. Finally, a filing cabinet and the two comfortable visitors armchairs separated by a low coffee table. Lara occupied one chair, Dr Melanie Kim the other.

‘I didn’t think it was actually you I’d be talking to, I thought you were just a ... the...’

‘Secretary?’ said Melanie, ‘I get that a lot.’ She was older than Lara had expected. The voice had sounded young on the phone: confident but young. In fact the shrink was nearer to forty. She looked like she went to the gym regularly and she filled out her casually expensive clothes with the kind of easy grace and poise that comes from a certain kind of upbringing. The same kind as Lara’s.

‘So what made you take on a job like this?’ said Dr Kim.

Lara tried to remember. ‘Partly a rebellion against my parents, I suppose.’

‘In what way?’

‘Privilege. Expectation. My mother would prefer me to do something nicer than police work. My dad has always seen me as ten percent less than the son he really wanted. Clever. Pretty. A bit of a try-hard. I think he had in mind for me a short, successful career in the arts. But really just biding my time until I churned
out some children, hopefully a grandson as consolation. Cop?’ She shook her head. ‘Never.’

‘Bit harsh?’

‘You haven’t met him.’

‘I meant harsh on you. That’s a lot of pressure you’ve put yourself under.’ Kim tilted her head. ‘So is the rebellion working? Are you winning?’

‘The chip’s still on my shoulder but I do like the job.’

‘What do you like about it?’

‘I like beating the bad guys.’

Kim looked alarmed. ‘Beating?’

‘As in – getting the better of. Winning.’

‘Who are the bad guys?’

‘It changes. Sometimes it’s dickheads on the street, sometimes they’re in the office.’

‘You see your colleagues as the enemy?’

‘Not all. But I don’t entirely trust them.’

‘Why not?’

Lara shrugged. ‘It’s what I’ve been taught. In the end I’m Daddy’s little girl.’

It was on. Word came through half an hour ago: they had what they needed, on the dotted line. This time though it was intended to be low-key. DI Hutchens had baulked at another full-scale TRG raid after the first two failed to deliver the required results. Instead they were in unmarked Commodores parked in a couple of bays at Phoenix Shopping Centre on Rockingham Road. Cato and Hutchens in one, Farmer John and a burly associate in another, plus two more carloads cruising the nearby streets and waiting for orders. Two lock-up paddy wagons were also on standby. The Trans were under surveillance and were to be picked up at a time and location of Hutchens’ choosing.

Cato’s gamble had paid off. The idea was to use the leverage they had over the Apaches not only to get them to back off on their personal threats against him but also to tidy up the nail-gun murder of Christos Papadakis (along with a supplementary
pig cruelty charge). Getting Goatee to tell his tale on record had been the big sticking point but now there was a new pragmatism to their Outlaw Code of non-cooperation. Brokered discreetly by Farmer John, the prospect of effectively taking the Trans out of the game without the need for an all-out war was win-win for everyone. Except the Trans of course. That morning Goatee, real name Titus Galsworthy – no wonder he went bad and became a bikie – had provided a signed statement and agreed he would submit to a medical examination at some unspecified future date.

‘Vinnie is toast.’

DI Hutchens couldn’t hide his glee that he was wrapping up a murder and, in effect, doing Gangs’ job for them. The notion that he was also getting into bed with one side – well, that was another matter. Cato was ambivalent: it was all his idea in the first place so he couldn’t complain about the moral niceties. He thought about Karina’s pregnant teenage daughter, held down and beaten with baseball bats by the very men they were doing deals with. Cato had that ugly tight feeling in his gut again: an unnerving sense that his karmic chickens would come home to roost. He’d had the feeling ever since he exited the water at South Beach earlier that morning with a stinger rash around his upper arm like a bogan tattoo waiting to be inked.

All the shopping centre entries and exits were covered. Everybody was armed and vested. The Tran brothers were being trailed inside by a couple of Farmer John’s UCs. The idea was for a quick walk-up, four to each man: outnumbered and outgunned, they were to be bundled into the vans and driven off, minimum fuss and drama. It seemed that on Thursdays the Trans always paid a visit to their semi-legitimate money laundering outlets in the southern suburbs.

‘Phoenix fucking Shopping Centre,’ said Hutchens, filling the silence.

Cato wasn’t sure whether his boss was seeking a reply.

‘Big fucking W,’ Hutchens muttered.

Was this the DI’s take on commerce and existentialism? Rather than be subjected to a long expletive-riddled list of local retail
outlets, Cato decided to join the conversation. ‘Looks like it’s going to be another warm one, boss.’

‘No shit?’

The rising heat and the protective vest gave Cato the sweats, big-time. Hutchens too looked like he was suffering. Waiting, wondering, and sweating: life on the frontline of the fight between good and evil in Western Australia. Hutchens’ Hawaii-5-0 mobile throbbed.

‘Both of them?’ A pause. ‘Unaccompanied?’ Another pause. ‘You sure they’re unarmed?’ He covered the mouthpiece and turned to Cato. ‘Call everyone into position, surf’s up.’

Cato got onto his mobile and did as he was told. No radios in case they were being monitored. There was a sudden rise in testosterone, adrenalin and tension. Cato breathed deeply to steady his nerves. A series of texts came through to Cato’s and the DI’s phones simultaneously. Everybody in place. Only now did Hutchens use the radio.

‘Let’s go,’ he said.

Afterwards, Cato wasn’t sure where it all started to go wrong. They caught up with Jimmy and Vincent just outside the newsagent’s on the main concourse. In retrospect everything assumed a dream-like quality: time playing tricks, stopping and starting, evaporating and re-forming.

A handful of punters queuing up for Slikpiks for the weekend lotto draw, a child of indeterminate sex wailing and straining against the straps keeping it in the pusher. The Trans in midconversation, Vincent laughing at something Jimmy just said. DI Hutchens stepping forward with his ID on display.

‘Morning Jimmy, Vincent, we’d like you to come with us. Nice and calm, mate, okay?’

Jimmy taking in the situation, mind clicking into gear, smile just holding. An old lady crossing his path, squinting at her shopping list.

Maybe this was where it started to go wrong.

Vincent Tran revealing that he isn’t actually unarmed.
Producing a butterfly knife that he holds to the throat of the passing pensioner.

Cato pulling out his pistol, holding it two-handed, focusing on Jimmy while colleagues lock on Vincent. Somebody screaming and a scattering of footsteps as a space opens around them. The toddler still wailing. The pensioner with her eyes closed, Vincent’s arm around her throat and the knife blade pricking her cheek. She’s mouthing a prayer, Cato trying to read her lips at the same time as he watches over Jimmy. Hands in the crowd hold up mobiles to capture the moment. Hutchens shouting.

‘Drop the knife. Drop the knife. Now.’

Or was it when Jimmy scolded Vincent in their native tongue, provoking a look of deep hurt and an angry jab into the cheek of the old woman hostage? Is that when the sky began to fall in?

The pensioner’s yelp of pain and a vivid spurt of blood. Farmer John taking two steps closer to Vincent and levelling his Glock: trigger finger drawing back. Jimmy’s shake of the head. Another figure edging into Cato’s field of vision. A uniform. Reinforcements? No. The uniform is wrong; wrong colour. Who is he and why is he so close?

At any of those moments somebody needed to take control, calm everything down and bring it to a halt. Nobody did. Cato knew exactly the moment it all went very wrong for him. It was when Jimmy Tran lunged.

Later in the report it would say that he did so in a violent and threatening manner but Cato would remember it more as a desperate attempt to try to calm the storm and the inevitable terrible consequences. He would remember Jimmy’s hands facing downwards in what, retrospectively, was a placating manner. And it wasn’t really a lunge because somebody had barrelled into Jimmy from behind: a centre security guard wanting to be a have-a-go hero.

Jimmy cannoning into Cato’s outstretched hand and the gun going off. After the roar, a silence as Jimmy slips to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

It’s at that moment, as his brother lies bleeding on the floor of Phoenix Shopping Centre and chaos prevails, that Vincent Tran makes his getaway: melting into the crowd like a phantom.

A Critical Incident team had been sent from HQ: the area was locked down and taped off, witnesses were being interviewed, CCTV footage seized, all the usual procedures. The pensioner would be fine. The blood had been spectacular but the wound was shallow and, after being stitched up she was allowed home from Fremantle Hospital. Jimmy Tran was still in emergency surgery at Royal Perth. The bullet had entered low in the neck just above the collarbone. Its exit had caused the real damage: taking part of his spinal cord with it. If he survived he would probably be a quadriplegic. Cato was in deep shock. DI Hutchens was in deep damage control. His dreams of glory had turned into another bloody fiasco and the target of the botched operation, Vincent Tran, was still out there somewhere. It emerged that he’d wrestled a young man from his trail bike as it slowed in the shopping centre car park and then disappeared through a lunch-hour traffic snarl that left the cops gridlocked.

‘Dog’s breakfast doesn’t begin to describe it.’ Hutchens appeared shrunken, defeated and ten years older. If Cato had any empathy to spare he would have felt sorry for the man. Hutchens read his mind. ‘Go home, Cato. Look after yourself. There’ll be an inquiry but I’ll do what I can to keep a lid on things.’ He placed a hand on Cato’s shoulder. ‘It wasn’t your fault. The record will show that, don’t worry.’

‘Thanks.’

‘And don’t worry about Vincent, we’ll find him.’

‘Okay.’

Cato had every confidence that, in the immediate term, the DI and the HQ spin doctors would bury the shooting beneath a shitpile of hyperbole about heroic quick-thinking action, the welfare of innocent bystanders, and any other razzle-dazzle they could conjure. He had less confidence in the longer-term outcome of an internal inquiry, particularly if the hush-hush deal with the bikies
unravelled. He had no confidence at all in his own ability to believe that none of it was his fault.

And he could only hope like hell that the DI was right in saying he’d find the desperate and vengeful Vincent Tran. Cato did as he was told and went home.

Late afternoon and the heat had subsided. Kids were home from school and Cato could hear the laughter, squeals and chatter coming from the park just a few doors up at the end of the street. Over the fence, Madge was barking again, fully recovered from her food-poisoning ordeal. The weariness that had descended on Cato as he left the office hadn’t translated into sleep. He tried to play the piano but the keys and pedals were coated in glue. He tried to do a crossword but it mocked him. Staring dumbly into space was all he was good for. Staring dumbly into space and seeing Jimmy Tran trying to bring calm to the chaos and taking Cato’s bullet in the neck for his trouble.

He’d had enough. He dialled a number.

‘Is that the Council Ranger? I want to report a barking dog nuisance.’

Cato gave his details and promised that he would put it all in writing, notify the offending owner, and allow an opportunity for rectification. Cato dashed off an email, printed a copy and took it next door.

‘You’re a real hater aren’t you?’ said Felix after reading it. The look was one of revulsion. Madge stood behind, head cocked inquisitively.

Cato scanned the stickers and posters in Felix’s window: against this, for that, stop the other. He prodded him in the chest. ‘And you’re a dickhead.’

‘Touch me again and I’ll have you up on an assault charge.’

Cato bunched his fist and drew it back. ‘May as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.’

Felix stepped back sharply and trod on Madge. The Jack Russell yipped. The noise dissolved the red mist before Cato’s eyes. He turned around and went home again.

‘You haven’t heard the last of this.’ Felix’s voice had a quaver in it. Madge was yapping again.

‘Just shut up, for goodness sake.’ Cato slammed his door behind him.

Lara had heard it on the radio earlier as she was driving back from her appointment with Dr Kim. It was brief and vague: an old woman injured in a hostage situation in a southern suburbs shopping centre, a man critically injured when police opened fire, another man on the run. That man’s name was Vincent Tran. Then the weather forecast said sunny and warm.

Her session with Melanie Kim had settled into an abstract but restful search for sense and meaning in her current emotional turmoil: not unlike that painting on the counsellor’s wall, muted daubings and occasional splashes. At least it felt restful at the time. Kim instilled calm and structure on Lara’s mad world for that one hour. It was still early days but already there was the glimpse of a path back to equilibrium. Apparently some layers needed to be peeled away first: think bruised onion, said Dr Kim. Lara was tempted to dismiss it as psycho-babble. As backup she’d bought more chocolate on the way home. Mildly Dark again – she was developing a taste for it. She’d drifted through the rest of the day on autopilot – chocolate, TV, snooze, but throughout it all there was only one thing on her mind. Why were the Trans back in play? She phoned Hutchens and found him still at work even though it was just gone six. Must be a real crisis, she thought.

‘You got time to talk, boss?’

A pause: a mental clicking from one gear into another. ‘Sure, Lara, what can I do for you?’

‘I heard the news. Just wondering what happened today, what’s going on with the Trans?’

Another gear change, down. ‘You’ve got enough on your plate; you need to relax and take time out. Focus on getting yourself better again.’

She ignored him. ‘Tell me what’s going on.’

‘Leave it, Lara.’

‘The Trans have always been my case; you know that. I just need to know. Please.’

Something about the way she said it must have convinced him, maybe it was because she asked nicely. They’d had a new lead on Vincent for the nail-gun killing of Papadakis and followed it up. The operation to bring him in went skewiff and Jimmy Tran got shot by Cato. Lara had the impression there was a lot more to the tale but that’s all she was going to get for now.

‘How’s Cato?’

‘A bit like you: under the weather. Lying low at home.’

‘Poor bastard.’

‘Yeah, there’s a lot of it going around at the moment.’

‘Need me back in to help out?’

‘No.’

‘I’m going troppo watching crap telly. I need a distraction.’

A slow breath in. ‘Well, when you put it like that I suppose we could do with more help manning the phones.’

‘Give me half an hour.’ Lara closed her mobile and went and brushed the chocolate off her teeth.

Cato felt as if the fibro walls of his home were closing in on him and no matter how high he played his music, Madge’s yaps penetrated and scraped at every nerve ending. He knew it was an over-reaction. He knew this was most likely a symptom of stress. He needed to get out. Cato picked up his car keys and mobile and left.

Down the beach end of the street there was an amber halo over the Sealanes fish factory as the sun released them for another day. His old Volvo struggled to start but after a few coughs it growled into action. A curtain twitched in Felix’s window. Cato gave it the finger. He found himself following a familiar route north, hugging the coast at Leighton and Cottesloe, the black ocean rolling in under an indigo sky. On up West Coast Highway with the tacky tower blocks of Scarborough in the distance: a reminder to those who would wish the Gold Coast upon Perth. Yes, he knew now where he was headed: maybe he’d always known.