Cato was woken early by the call on his mobile. His head was thick from the wine and the beating. It was DI Pavlou.
‘Which do you want first, the bad news or the worse news?’
‘Tell me.’
‘There was another murder last night. Homeless.’
‘Is that the bad or the worse?’
‘It couldn’t have been Jenkins. According to the guard dogs he never left home all night.’
‘Ah.’
Pavlou filled him in. A woman living rough with her husband, sleeping in a campervan in a car park just north of Rockingham. Throat slit.
‘The husband?’
‘Was fishing on the jetty. Saw a car come and go. He found her when he got back to the van.’
‘And you’re happy it’s not him, using the serial murders as cover?’
‘There was a playing card, diamonds. He couldn’t have known about that.’
‘I’ll get the next plane out.’
‘The next one scheduled is not until this afternoon. We’ve hitched you a ride with a Customs plane heading this way. Be at the airport in the next forty-five minutes and phone this guy.’ She gave him a number. ‘Hope you enjoyed your Great Southern junket.’
Cato thought about it: beating aside, it hadn’t been so bad. He ordered a cab and hopped in the shower. On the way out to Albany airport he phoned home.
‘You sound morning-after-ish. Big night?’ said Sharon.
‘More wine than I should have,’ admitted Cato.
‘Drinking alone, never a good sign.’ A pause. ‘You were alone, weren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ he lied. ‘How about you, how’s things at your end?’
‘The bed’s too big without you.’
‘I’m on my way back.’ He told her why, keeping it simple and vague so the cab driver wouldn’t bust a blood vessel.
‘Another? Jesus.’
‘How’s Ella?’
‘Good, she’s forgotten who you are and taken to calling the TV “Dada”.’
‘You know how to twist that knife, don’t you?’
‘Expert from way back. Get yourself home and fuck me.’
Cato promised to do his best.
The tape was still up around the car park perimeter just south of Kwinana Beach. Cato donned the paper suit and booties offered to him by one of the uniforms. DI Pavlou had recently left but Amy was there to give him an update.
‘The body’s gone off to the mortuary. The husband’s name is Kelvin, he’s being questioned by Rockingham Ds with Chris Thornton sitting in. We’re following up on the car Kelvin says he saw from the jetty.’
‘Make?’
‘Unsure at this stage. Dark sedan.’ She pointed at the houses a few hundred metres down the street. ‘We’re doorknocking to find out if anyone else saw or heard it.’
‘Not just last night. He could have been stalking them for a few days.’
‘Right,’ said Amy.
Around the immediate area it was beach, light industrial units, a lunch deli and the tower-block offices and silos of the bulk-handling terminal.
‘Cameras?’ asked Cato.
‘Nothing, apart from at the gates to the bulk terminal way over there or further back in towards Rocky central. But we’re in the process of harvesting whatever there is.’
Cato had the feeling that Pavlou had probably already asked these questions and Amy seemed to be on the verge of some Gen-Y eye-rolling. He thanked her and took a stroll Duncan Goldflam’s way. ‘Smoking gun?’
‘Already bagged it,’ said Goldflam. ‘Along with the perp’s driving licence and signed confession.’
‘Otherwise?’
‘A two-metre trail of blood and some promising tyre and foot impressions: the feet are size ten and this time it looks like he was wearing Vans skate shoes.’ He waved his hand at the tarmac surface of the car park. ‘A layer of damp sand from that windy shower yesterday arvo. Real bonus.’
‘The playing card?’
‘Rolled up and sticking out of her mouth like a ciggie.’
Grotesque, thought Cato. ‘What are you thinking?’
‘I think matey is getting cocky and that’s when they start making mistakes.’
‘Fingers crossed.’ Cato had rarely seen Goldflam so chipper. Across the road and down a bit, the deli was opening. Cato was ready for a coffee.
‘Looks nasty,’ the proprietor said, nodding in the general direction. ‘Yep.’ It was nearly ten, the deli was starting late. ‘You missed a bit of breakfast business here this morning. My colleagues would have been all over this place.’
‘Yeah, if I’d known,’ she said. ‘Usually nothing moves up this end until about now. Not worth me while to do breakfasts.’ She was a fit-looking woman but the lines on her face suggested life had been unkind. ‘Besides, there’s me yoga class in the morning. Much better than getting up at five a.m. to serve bacon and egg toasties to half-a-dozen grumpy old bastards who can’t string two words together. Had enough of that with my husband, God rest his obese soul.’ She clacked a coffee serve into the machine. ‘What can I do for you?’
Cato introduced himself and flashed his ID. ‘Philip.’
‘Gwenda.’ She gave him a smile.
‘Flat white and …’ He surveyed the rolls and sandwiches under the glass counter and decided they’d seen better days, chose a Mars bar instead.
‘You’ll get fat,’ she said.
Cato realised he was being flirted with. Seize the day, he thought. ‘Noticed anything unusual around here lately?’
‘What? Like millions of cops scouring the car park, that type of thing?’ Cato sipped the coffee she handed him and made an appreciative face as if it tasted okay. ‘Nothing comes to mind. There’s usually a few homeless kipping in their vans over there …’ The penny dropped. ‘Is that what …? Shit, mate.’ She shook her head.
‘How about cars hanging around?’
Gwenda squinted. Sudden life in that sad face. ‘Day before last, one pulled up just outside about nine-ish, when I was opening.’ She described it: black, racy, a Mazda maybe? Her brother-in-law had one just like it, only white.
‘Did you see the occupant? Did they come in?’
‘No, that’s why I remember it. He stayed in the car, just sat there.’
‘How long for?’
‘Ten, fifteen minutes maybe. Then left.’
‘Just sat there?’ A nod. ‘Making a call, looking at his phone? Anything like that?’
‘Nah.’
‘But you didn’t get a good look at him?’
Gwenda shook her head. ‘From here all I could see was about that much of his front.’ She indicated with both hands a gap from nipple to belly button.
‘The shirt?’
She shrugged. ‘Dark. Plain, no pattern. It fitted him well.’
‘How do you mean?’
A playful smile. ‘He was cut, mate. Nice flat hard tummy. While I was buttering the rolls, I was thinking about his abs.’ A sudden recollection. ‘That’s it, I saw his arms as well. Forearms. Thick like Popeye’s. And hairy.’
‘Young, old?’
‘Young, I guess, no older than thirties anyway.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Tattoos?’
‘No, it’s unusual these days, isn’t it? Everybody thinks they’ll suddenly look cool if they have a tatt.’ She grimaced. ‘They’re so wrong.’
Cato thanked Gwenda and told her to expect a follow-up interview on the record.
‘Send someone nice,’ she said. ‘Like you.’
Cato and DI Pavlou watched the tape of Kelvin’s interview together. The man was devastated, kept breaking into heaving sobs. It wasn’t easy viewing.
‘We’ve got to catch this bastard, Philip.’
‘Yes, boss.’
Pavlou stepped out of the room to take a call on her mobile. Cato was transfixed by the man’s story.
‘We were living over in Brentwood, near the primary school. Liz managed real estate lettings. I was FIFO until the nickel price dropped. Ravensthorpe, know it?’
The interviewing detective had only heard of it but Cato knew it well, he’d solved a murder near there once.
Kelvin’s eyes filled. ‘Liz had this breakdown. Those backstabbers at the office. Until then we’d been keeping up the mortgage payments even with me out of work. We also had a bit saved for a rainy day. Then she got the chop and within six months we’re in the van.’ He shook his head. ‘Fucking rainy every day now.’
‘Kids? Family?’ The detective was getting restless, as if he needed to be elsewhere. Maybe he thought this interview had already given him all he was going to get: a time frame and a possible suspect vehicle.
‘We couldn’t. I’m firing blanks. Family? Back in Victoria. We came over to WA for the boom and to escape those lazy, grasping dickheads on her side. Get help from them? No chance.’
Edge of frame, Chris Thornton leant in. ‘So you’ve been living in the van what, a year?’
‘Just over. The bank took back the house, it hadn’t picked up much from when we bought it. After the fees and interest we got enough to buy and fit out the Kombi.’
‘No prospect of work for you?’
Kelvin shook his head bitterly. ‘Black mark on my record.’
The Rockingham detective picked up a sheet of paper. ‘Possession and supply, marijuana. That wasn’t smart was it?’
‘So I was an idiot. It was fourteen years ago. And now I’m nudging fifty and the job market is tighter with the downturn. The last lot turned a blind eye but now I’m easier to ignore.’
‘Shame,’ said the detective, without conviction.
‘Any dealings with the homeless agencies?’ said Chris Thornton.
‘No. Liz was proud like that. Didn’t want to be seen as a charity case, to be lumped in with them, reminded of your failure every day by God-botherers and do-gooders. Didn’t want to know.’
‘How about you? Did you want their help? Did you talk to anyone?’
‘Nah. We were approached a few times, sometimes I’d have a yarn if I was in the mood or Liz was taking a nap, but after a while we always sent them packing.’ A smile. ‘What Liz says, goes.’
‘Remember who you yarned with?’ said Thornton.
A shrug. ‘Nah, after a while it all blurs.’
‘Any recent contacts with anybody from the agencies? However brief? Last few days?’
‘Nothing comes to mind.’
‘How many people would have known you’d be there, then?’
‘Only passers-by I suppose. We’ve been parked there for three or four days. It’s a well-known hangout for folk like us.’
‘But you had the place to yourself?’
‘Nice change. Maybe the previous day’s rain kept people away. I don’t know.’
Thornton pressed but nothing came of it. A few more exchanges and they returned to the crime, the Rockingham detective running a last check to make sure he hadn’t missed anything.
‘Where did the car park up? The dark sedan?’
‘I dunno. A few spaces away, three or four, south on the Rocky side?’ This tallied with the recovered prints. ‘And you heard no conversations, greetings, whatever? Your wife must have noticed the car come in. Seen the person get out and approach her?’
‘I heard nothing from where I was, a hundred metres away on the end of the jetty, maybe more.’
‘And you heard nothing, no cry for help, no cry of alarm?’
Kelvin blinked away more tears. ‘Nothing. She’s on these pills that zonk her out, so maybe there was nothing to hear. Either way, the wind was up, a good sou’-westerly off the sea. You wouldn’t hear anything, would you?’
Another victim and more medication, noted Cato. Pavlou stepped back into the room. Cato angled the laptop towards her. The Rocky detective shifted in his seat. ‘Going back a bit, after you heard about the killings on the news, you didn’t think to take extra precautions with your security?’
It sounded like an accusation.
‘We avoided Freo. What else do you suggest? Put up in a flash hotel until you catch him?’
‘No need for sarcasm, sir. We’re here to help.’
Kelvin bowed his head. ‘Sorry.’ Even now, even here, bossed and humiliated by somebody who would never fully grasp this man’s path to disaster. Kelvin looked up, tears streaming down his face. ‘Why us? What did we ever do to deserve this? It’s like we’ve fallen off the end of the fucking earth.’
The detective slipped his notes back into a folder and stood. ‘I’ll get you a cup of tea, mate.’
At this point Chris Thornton turned and looked at the camera with a helpless shrug.
Cato closed the laptop. ‘Why didn’t she make a fuss when a stranger approached her vehicle?’
Pavlou said, ‘Asleep, didn’t notice him, or …’
‘He wasn’t a stranger?’
‘All of the above.’
‘So Jenkins is definitely out of the picture now?’
Pavlou filled her glass from the water fountain. ‘It would seem so.’
Cato didn’t want to let it go and said so.
Pavlou shook her head. ‘The bloke’s a prick and a bully, but if we’re assuming the same man has done these four murders, then Jenkins can’t be our killer. He was home all night, we were watching him. She squinted at Cato. ‘We need to stay objective and focused, Philip.’
Of course she was right but he still didn’t want to let it go. ‘We’re dropping surveillance on him?’
‘Yes. Why wouldn’t we? Those resources can be better used elsewhere.’
‘Fair enough. Can we keep the data and communications tap on?’
‘What’s our rationale? You don’t like him?’ She swigged her water. ‘It’s over. Let’s get back to work and find the real killer.’
‘Where?’ he said, exhaustion and disappointment dragging him down.
‘In the detail. In the paperwork. In the evidence.’ Pavlou seemed undaunted by the prospect of returning to square one. Maybe this was what leadership was all about. ‘Chin up, Philip. You can do this.’