Wayne Joseph Bradley did indeed have a record for violence. He was nasty enough to warrant the Tactical Response Group: in the last four years he’d glassed a stranger in a club in Rockingham, put his de facto in hospital with a broken jaw and headbutted a taxi driver who had the temerity to ask for the fare. He’d served some time for the glassing but had managed to keep it to fines and good behaviour bonds for the rest. Last, but by no means least, there was a firearms licence in the name of his de facto — and somewhere in that house there was an Adler A110 repeater shotgun, the spree killer’s friend. The mine Bradley was working at was one of the smaller operators in the Pilbara with few resources to check on their employees’ characters and little option but to take the scrapings from the big boys’ table. Bradley had the Southern Cross and the Eureka Stockade flags flapping in his front yard and a massive rottie on a chain on the front verandah. It was going berko and a few plant pots had already gone flying. With the paths on either side of the house blocked off by a rusty corrugated iron fence topped by barbed wire, the only way in was past the dog. The neighbours at the side and back were a possibility for access and negotiations were ongoing.
The TRG squad leader was a bloke called Dave whom Cato had had dealings with on several occasions. ‘You still here?’ he said. ‘I thought they had a rotation policy to avoid burnout.’
‘They lifted the retirement age for key personnel,’ Dave hissed from under his Darth Vader helmet. ‘I’m here until I’m seventy.’
Chris Thornton wiggled his mobile. ‘Bradley’s not answering.’
‘But the ute’s in the driveway and the neighbours haven’t seen him leave,’ said Cato.
It was midafternoon and warm enough for Cato to be sweating under his Kevlar vest. Bradley lived in Aurelian Street. It was a quiet and pleasant enough suburban street, dog notwithstanding, except now a news helicopter was approaching. ‘He couldn’t still be sleeping through that racket?’
‘So are we going in, or what?’ said TRG Dave.
Cato shrugged. ‘Okay.’
‘The dog?’
‘Anyone on the way for that?’
‘RSPCA’s stuck in traffic on the freeway,’ said Thornton. ‘And the council bloke’s on a sickie.’ He squinted at a point past Cato’s left shoulder. ‘Is that smoke?’
It was. Billowing from a window down the side of the house.
‘Get in there,’ said Cato. And to Thornton. ‘Fire brigade. Now.’
‘The dog?’ said TRG Dave, again.
‘That’s an operational matter for you.’
Dave waved his squad into place and they advanced. The rottie’s chain was taut and the fencepost securing it looked old and weak. The dog was going bananas. Dave had his taser at the ready, he aimed and fired. The rottie got even more riled as the darts sent a charge through him. The fencepost snapped and the dog flew at TRG Dave, knocking him to the ground, snapping at his head and gloved arms. The dog’s front paws were on Dave’s chest, its head lowering, teeth bared and drool dripping.
‘Get this fucker off me,’ Dave yelled.
A colleague obliged with a burst of his AR-15. The rottie disintegrated in a splatter of fur, blood and bone. Sirens heralded the approach of the fireys. There was a creak and groan and Wayne Bradley’s verandah began to collapse in on itself, leaning with a sad sigh and a dry crack into the front yard. On cue, the front door opened and Bradley himself poked a sleepy, unshaven and distinctly hungover face through the gap. He looked like a tasered koala.
‘What?’ he grumbled.
They all agreed the pictures on the evening news would be worth rushing home for. DI Pavlou had already given Cato a blast over the phone and he could expect more in person later that day. It turned out Wayne Joseph Bradley was as deaf as a doornail as well as partially disabled from some birth defect. The result was a left leg that didn’t work too well. The chances of him kicking and stomping an ex-commando to death were remote. The house smoke was from burnt toast and he wasn’t happy about the verandah. Or the dog. Bradley had been allowed to put his hearing aid in after being arrested.
‘What’d you have to kill Scottie for?’ he whined.
‘Self-defence,’ said Cato. ‘We need to talk about your whereabouts on a couple of dates.’
‘Got any Panadol?’ Bradley said. ‘Got a bastard of a headache.’ Chris Thornton put a call through to a minion to organise it. ‘And a cuppa tea? Throat on me like a dead dingo’s dick.’
‘Make it two,’ said Cato to Thornton. ‘Milk and none.’ Thornton added a third for himself. Back to Bradley. ‘You’re happy to waive the right to a lawyer?’
‘Done nuthin’. Who gives?’
‘What’s your opinion of homeless people?’
‘They need a haircut and a proper job.’
Cato slid a CCTV still image across the table. ‘Is that your car?’
‘Yep. Flash, eh?’
He pointed to a frozen blurry face behind the wheel. ‘Is that you driving it?’
‘Don’t let no other cunt drive me ute.’
Cato pointed to the date and time imprint. ‘Wednesday, twenty-third of August. Eleven forty-six p.m.’ The location. ‘Marine Terrace, South Fremantle, just outside Sealanes fish factory.’
‘And?’ said Bradley. His Panadol and water had arrived and Thornton passed around the tea. The uniformed constable retreated with that look of bored contempt common to many Fremantle waitpersons.
Cato slid a second photo across the table. ‘Thursday, seventh of September. One-thirty a.m. Give or take. That’s you again, isn’t it?’
Bradley spun the photo absent-mindedly on the tip of his finger. ‘Like I say. My ute, so it’ll be me, won’t it?’
‘Corner of Marine and Essex by the Esplanade Hotel,’ said Cato.
‘Yeah. So?’
‘So within about a hundred metres of those locations, at around the time you’re passing by, two people have been murdered.’
Bradley shook his head. ‘Aw, fuck off, mate. No way.’
‘So explain your presence. The Sealanes one first.’
‘I’ll need me phone. Check me diary and that.’ Under close supervision from Thornton he was allowed to do so. A few finger flicks and a nod. ‘I was halfway through a five off. Kaz was on nights at the hospital.’
Thornton was making notes, all of this would be checked. ‘That night?’ pressed Cato.
Another glance at the phone. A shrug. ‘Nothing special. Can’t remember.’
‘It was near midnight. Where had you been? Where were you going? According to the camera you’re heading north, towards the city centre.’
‘Drink maybe?’
‘You tell me,’ said Cato.
A shake of the head. ‘Fucked if I know.’
‘How about this one, then?’ Cato prodded the second photo. ‘That’s just the night before last. You should be able to remember that.’
‘Yep, Kaz was on nightshift again.’
‘And?’ prompted Cato.
A smirk. ‘I’d been for a few down at the Orient and over at Little Creatures and I was headed for Ada Rose.’ A brothel on South Terrace.
‘What time did you get there?’
‘About five or ten minutes after that photo I reckon.’
‘What time did you leave?’
‘An hour or so later. I like to get my money’s worth.’
‘Who were you with?’
‘Dunno, wasn’t interested in her name.’
‘Describe her,’ said Thornton. Wayne did, in salacious detail. It could and would be checked. ‘Kaz might not be too pleased.’
‘Good try, mate, but we have an open and trusting relationship. Kaz acknowledges that I’m a man with extraordinary needs and she’s usually too tired after her shift.’
That would be Kaz, the understanding de facto with the gun licence.
‘What’s with the firepower? The Adler?’ Cato asked. TRG had found and confiscated it — covetously it seemed to Cato at the time.
‘Cool, isn’t it?’
‘They’re supposed to be banned.’
‘We … she got in early, before it came into effect.’
‘Not me. Kaz. It’s her licence, her gun. She’s a farm girl.’ A smile. ‘Gun club. At the range. No law against it. Second amendment right, mate. Or fifth. Whatever.’
‘Wrong country,’ said Cato. ‘Is it okay if we take fingerprints and DNA samples from you?’
Bradley hawked some phlegm into his plastic cup and passed it over. ‘Help yourself.’
It was late afternoon by the time Cato got the promised face-to-face bollocking from DI Pavlou.
‘A blameless citizen. Drunk, deaf and disabled, dog dead, and house demolished. Having a good day, Philip?’
‘We’ve managed to eliminate him from our enquiries,’ said Cato, as brightly as he could. ‘And he did have a record of violence. And a firearm. A nasty one.’
‘I wasn’t aware there were any nice ones. So what does he do on the mines anyway?’
‘Chef.’
‘He can drive a ute with his gammy leg?’
‘Seems so. It’s an automatic.’
‘The news hyenas are going to love this.’
Cato shrugged. ‘It shows we’re being proactive in the hunt for a serial killer.’
Pavlou shifted position to signify she was moving on. Cato was beginning to appreciate that about her: she wasn’t a grudge-bearer like Hutchens. Or himself for that matter. ‘Paddy McMahon’s managed to set up a meeting with Defence about Christopher White. I’d like you to sit in with him.’
‘Sure.’
‘They’re sending somebody out from Campbell Barracks. The meeting’s tomorrow at ten, here.’
‘Yep.’
‘And you might want to look at this.’ She slid a sheet of paper across the desk.
It was a formal request from Pavlou to have Cato seconded to Major Crime for the duration of the investigation. ‘What’s the point?’ said Cato. ‘I’m already on the case.’
‘But this means you’re on my team and wholly under my command.’
‘Again, I take that as read, anyway.’
‘It’s a subtly shaded detail, Philip. One that could make all the difference.’
Uh-oh, he thought. ‘What does DI Hutchens say?’
She tapped a ticked box and a set of initials at the bottom of the form. ‘He says yes.’
Norman had finally persuaded the editor to let him run with it. The media frenzy around the serial killer revelation earlier in the week had tipped the scales. But New WAve was an oily-rag online news site, set up as a tax break by Betsy’s over-indulgent daddy. Betsy was a minnow with ambitions to be a piranha.
‘Newspapers are dying a slow, gangrenous death, limb by limb,’ she’d said at the job interview. ‘We’re the future, sweetie. Niche, targeted, hungry, influential. Think Crikey, think New Matilda, think Mamamia, think …’
‘Breitbart?’ offered Norman.
‘Who?’
‘Never mind.’
She’d been loathe to play futile catch-up with the media barons and wanted a different angle, more depth, more … she’d searched for the words and failed — more je ne sais quoi. Betsy never bothered to hide her lack of confidence in him. She had him down as a gigs and movies guy, indie stuff, maybe food and bars — hipster shit. News was for the Curtin ex-grads who fawned at her feet. He was only from lowly ECU. They all found that funny or really cool, like he was brave, or maybe disabled.
‘How about a hotline to the killer?’ mused Norman. ‘Seeing things from his perspective?’
‘Pander to the freaks, you mean? We’re not skanky clickbaiters at New WAve.’
My arse you’re not. ‘The election’s next month: Funky Freo versus Prosperous Port, and serial killers making things a bit less predictable. I see it more as tapping into the zeitgeist?’
Zeitgeist. That got her attention, she didn’t expect words like that from him. Try that for je ne sais fucking quoi. He’d explained what he saw from the hotel bedroom window. Betsy, flushed, had high-fived him when he told her what he was doing in that hotel in the first place. Made some comment about checking out Tinder herself. Good luck with that, he thought. Now she wanted detail. How precisely would he make contact? What were the legal implications of what they were proposing?
‘Legals? Who gives a toss? Did Woodward and Bernstein care about the legals when they played footsy with Deep Throat?’
‘Bad boy,’ she chided him. ‘Still, maybe you could come up with a road map? Then I can sign off on Monday.’
So how would he make contact? Norman stared at his iPad, willing the plan into existence. He had three new notifications waiting on Tinder. Destiny at the swipe of a thumb. That gave him an idea.