Cato woke before dawn and went out driving. Rain had blown in from down south and the wipers on his old Volvo struggled with the unseasonal deluge. Wind shook the trees and power lines and anybody with any sense was still under their doonas. He found himself down at the wharf near where the first victim, Dean Pearson, had been found with a multitude of stab wounds.
He took out his iPad with the scan of Dean’s Dero Diary and read the entry that had jolted him awake in the early hours. In July, about three weeks before his death, Dean had been musing, in his own sweet way, on the nature of altruism.
Give me a kick off Jackboot Johnny any day over a dollar off that woman who thinks I’m her fault. Feels guilty about us, unclean unseen. Puh-lease, get a life! You don’t know me — don’t know my family — where I came from. I’m not here because people voted the wrong way in the election. I’m just fucking here + thats that. Keep your dollar. Go + bleed your heart over somebody else or DO SOMETHING!
In more big caps, BOO HOO! Then a scrawled picture of a Pokémon dragon holding a dagger dripping with blood. Some expletives. Skip forward to the next block of prose.
Not all do-gooders are wankers or soft touches. Even godbotherers can be a good laugh. That dude cracking funnies + taking the piss — breath of fresh air.
Blink and you’d miss it. No names. Only a passing reference. God-bothering do-gooder. Samuels from the Street Angels, always good for a laugh, cracking funnies. Angels. Cato scrolled back, looked at them again. Maybe, maybe not. What if all those winged dragons were really badly-drawn angels breathing hellfire sermons? Who are you, David Samuels, and what made you so lethally mad? What made you hone in on the homeless? On my son?
Cato checked the time on the dashboard, still way too early for the Street Angels office to be open. But being Fremantle, there was no shortage of coffee shops to greet the early worms. Another flashback. Early morning shifts looking after Jake while Jane caught up on sleep. A drive down to North Mole to watch ships coming and going or check out the buckets of the anglers. Then off to the coffee shop, the staff aleady knowing Jake’s preference for a babycino. Jane shaking her head if she went in with him later in the day to find the staff and her little boy chatting like old friends.
Cato’s eyes blurred. Everything reminded him, tore at him.
Sharon had heard Phil get up and go, and chose to pretend she was still asleep. But as soon as his car rolled out the driveway she got up and sat staring at the calendar on the wall as her tea went cold. They needed to break the circuit. Maybe she should take Ella over east and visit the folks for a week or two? No, that would fix nothing. Maybe she should slap Phil out of his grief and self-recrimination and remind him he still had a family to think about. Harsh but true. But perhaps too early. There was a fine line between too early and too late. When was the right moment? A bit after they decided to switch off Jake’s machines? Or maybe hang in there in the hope Jake woke up and everyone could live happily ever after. It could be a while. She was lost. It wasn’t something she was used to, having an unsolvable problem. She was a results girl, a go-getter. Sure-thing-Sharon. Now she’d fallen in love with this impossible, lovely man and brought their baby into the world and, seemingly, lost control over her life. And, of course, there was Samuels, who had fixated on and looked like destroying this family. In some ways he represented the kind of problem she was used to — a bad guy. Find him, stop him and lock him up. Phil’s self-loathing grief was another matter altogether.
Find out who Samuels really is. Transnational identity theft was one of the things the AFP was good at and she knew exactly the right people to talk to. She checked the clock on the wall, nine-thirty in Canberra, they should have started work by now. Time to make a few calls.
After coffee and scrambled eggs down at South Beach kiosk, with the weather keeping the dogs and their owners mercifully at bay, Cato popped his head around the door of Street Angels, a former Point Street townhouse turned into offices. Outside a 4WD was parked. It looked to Cato like it could have been the one spotted on CCTV down by the port the night Dean Pearson died. Cato relished the first feeling of calm and focus he’d felt in a long time. Last night Jane had torn a strip off him but had also made a deal.
‘I’ll sit in with Jake full-time, take your shifts, sleep here if I have to. I’ve got somebody who can keep the consultancy ticking over and Simon’s got the twins under control. You might feel warmer and fuzzier reading The Lorax to him but it doesn’t help track down this Samuels bastard.’
‘There’s a few dozen cops already on the case.’
‘None of them with your level of motivation.’ She smiled sadly. ‘Besides, I can tell Jake’s getting bored with you. He’s ready for Yertle the Turtle now.’
Jane knew him too well.
There was a poster on the Street Angels office wall: an Aryan-looking woman offering solace to a homeless waif straight out of Oliver Twist — Street Angels, read the caption, Heaven Sent. By the window a clean-cut bloke, mid thirties, looked up from his computer screen and pushed his wire frame specs back up his nose.
‘Yes?’
Cato introduced himself and stated his business.
The ID received only the most cursory of glances. ‘I’ve already been interviewed by your colleagues.’ He seemed a tad cold and defensive for an angel. ‘Samuels was an impostor, an aberration. We’ve reviewed and tightened our recruiting procedures since then.’
Cato fought the urge to punch the man into silence. Instead he smiled reassuringly. ‘A routine follow-up. Samuels still hasn’t been apprehended and we need to review all lines of enquiry.’ Another smile from Cato. ‘Your name again?’
‘Giles. Giles Strachan.’
‘How well do you know Samuels?’
‘Did. He’s no longer with us. And no, not very.’
‘What records do you have relating to him in your system?’
‘As I said to your colleague …’
‘Let’s pretend my colleague never came here, and start afresh. A new morning has broken.’ Cato tapped the top of the man’s Acer. ‘What do you have on Samuels?’
Giles’ lips pursed. ‘An address and a scan of his driver’s licence.’
‘That’s it? You took him on on the strength of that?’
‘As I said, we have since tightened our recruiting procedures.’
Cato shook his head. ‘What was his speciality?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Soup kitchen? Driver? Clothes sorter? What?’
‘He turned his hand to most things as I recall. Particularly diligent when we were doing the audit for the council.’
‘In what way?’
‘He went out to all the known pitches. Got to know the rough sleepers. Made sure they were counted in the audit. Brought us some new converts … clients,’ he added, seemingly as an afterthought.
That accounted for Samuels’ solid knowledge of who was where and how to find them. And why they might not have been so surprised by his presence in those moments just before they died.
‘Did he say why he’d come to Street Angels, of all the organisations he might have chosen?’ Apart from their obvious lack of recruitment vetting diligence.
‘He’d had dealings with us previously, I think.’
‘What dealings?’
‘This is all second-hand, we’ve just been talking among ourselves. I didn’t know him well myself. But somebody mentioned he might have been a client of ours a few years back.’
‘Homeless, you mean?’
‘I guess so.’
‘How many years back? One, two, three?’
A shrug. Strachan rummaged in a drawer and pulled out an envelope. ‘But he wasn’t just a nobody who walked in off the street. One of our volunteer supervisors dropped this by last week, she’d forgotten to put it into the system. A reference.’
‘Reference?’
‘A character reference, from a pastor in New Zealand.’
‘Did you pass this on to the officer who interviewed you?’
‘I thought this was a new start, a new morning breaking?’ Giles said, prissily.
‘Did you?’
‘At the time of the original visit I wasn’t aware of it. As I said, the volunteer only brought it in at the end of last week.’
‘And you didn’t think to phone the officer concerned?’
‘I mislaid her card.’ And wanted us all to go away and not come back, thought Cato. He clicked his fingers in a gimme gesture. Giles shook his head. ‘It’s confidential.’
‘This is a murder investigation.’ Cato took the envelope from Giles and slipped it into his pocket. ‘Need a receipt?’
‘No, I suppose not.’
‘Anything else you can tell me about Samuels?’
‘As I said, I never had any significant dealings with him, directly. I remember him at some of our meetings and congregations.’
‘Why?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Why did you remember him?’
‘He was a striking physical presence. One of the women referred to him as a real Christian Soldier.’
‘Got that wrong, didn’t she?’ Or maybe not. Cato stood to leave and handed Giles a business card. ‘Don’t mislay this one. Anything else, call me. My mobile and home numbers are on the back.’
Giles studied the card. ‘Kwong. Are you …’ Realisation dawned on him and his face radiated pity. ‘I’m so sorry about your son.’
‘Don’t bother.’
Back in the car with the wind buffeting the side panels, Cato read the character reference for Samuels. It was dated two years earlier and signed by Pastor Dennis Nelson of the Pinedale Pentecostal Congregation in Marlborough, South Island.
To Whom It May Concern.
I have known David Lance Samuels for many years as a member of this congregation. He is a fine, upstanding young man blessed with a strong Christian spirit and work ethic. He is respectful to his elders and respected by his peers. He mixes well in a range of social situations and, I believe, would be an asset to any organisation whose aim is to do good work in the community and spread the word of God.
David Lance Samuels seemed to have been a long-standing member of the local community, odds-on Kiwi born and bred. The one in the rail tunnel didn’t seem to have the accent although very little was said at the time. Was this reference for somebody else? The real Samuels? There was a telephone number on the letterhead but when Cato rang it he got a disconnected tone. He googled the Pinedale Pentecostal Congregation and, through salacious reports in the local media, he learned that it had since disbanded and Pastor Nelson had eloped with the church funds and a parishioner and was believed to be hiding somewhere on the North Island. There was a quote from a local police officer and a number to ring if anybody had any useful information. Cato rang it.
‘Nick Chester, Havelock Police.’
Cato introduced himself and stated his business. ‘Oh aye, aye, I remember that one.’
The accent was familiar to Cato, he’d heard something similar many years ago in Hopetoun: the crazy Pom from northern England, wreaking havoc across the years and across the world. ‘Anything you can tell me?’
‘Well the vicar still hasn’t been found but the woman he ran off with came back a month later. Mary, lovely lass, farm girl through and through.’
‘David Lance Samuels?’
‘Ah, well there’s the thing you see. Davey was reported missing by his folks a good eighteen months ago.’
‘Nah, nah, he was in Kalgoorlie by then, working on the mines like all the other Kiwis.’
‘Was this reported to Australian police?’
‘Probably but let’s see.’ A few clicks on the keyboard. ‘Aye, Kalgoorlie Police notified on …’ and he gave a date.
‘No trace?’
‘Thin air, mate. Poor lad’s probably down a mineshaft. Give us a yell if he shows up, eh?’
Mick Hutchens decided it was time to reacquaint himself with Special K. He had a number of community messages that needed to be sent out this morning on Twitter: car thefts, shoplifters, drive safely in the bad weather, etcetera. Normally he tasked them to a civilian or a junior officer whose leash needed jerking, but today he wanted to be more hands on. Photos of Samuels and ‘Have you seen this man?’ were already circulating on the police Twitter and Facebook feeds but there was no harm in adding to them. And if you wanted it to go wider than the usual busybodies and saddos who followed them you had to jazz it up a bit.
Have you seen this man? Wanted for serious offences Male 20–25 Dodgy facial hair, built like Buzz Lightyear #closinginBuzz
The favourites and retweets were coming thick and fast, at this rate he’d be trending by lunchtime. Mick Hutchens, a fucking viral sensation. It wasn’t long before someone tipped off his superiors. An incoming call from an assistant commissioner.
‘Hutchens, what are you up to? The Commissioner thinks you’re taking the piss out of her initiative.’
‘Perish the thought, sir.’
‘So stop. Now.’
‘Trust me on this one, sir. It’s a matter of operational imperative that we let it run.’ He explained himself further. ‘If it fails you can kick me out, if it succeeds the boss looks like the dog’s bollocks and she’ll be getting interviewed by the BBC, CNN, you name it.’
‘Not sure she wants to look like dog’s bollocks.’ The AC grunted. ‘One hour. I’ll let her know to stop biting the carpet until then.’
A chuckle. ‘You’re a fucking riot, Hutchens. We’re going to miss you.’
Cato’s next call was to Kalgoorlie police to see what they had on the missing person David Lance Samuels. The woman on the other end of the phone had a smoker’s voice as she clacked the keyboard.
‘Worked at one of those small mines out near Laverton.’ She gave a name and Cato noted it along with contact details. ‘Didn’t show up for work one Monday. Apparently he was one of those bible-bashers — he didn’t grog and whore his wages away.’
‘No sightings?’
‘Nothing. He’d opened a bank account here in Kal and there were regular transfers back to another one in NZ but that stopped after he went missing.’
Cato heard the hesitation in her voice. ‘But?’
‘But it was cleared out over the first weekend, cash withdrawals to the max. The bank didn’t get onto it until the Monday.’
‘That wasn’t being monitored?’
‘It was only after a week that his folks notified the NZ police who called us. Before that he was just assumed to have gone out bush, camping, detox from Sodom, whatever. By the time we were called in the money had gone.’
‘ATM cameras?’
‘Inconclusive: hoodie, bowed head, you know how it goes.’
‘So foul play is suspected.’
‘S’pose so.’
‘But not a priority?’
‘The Ds here looked into it but it went nowhere and there’s plenty else to do. Kal’s a big town with lots of bad people. Bikies, you name it.’
‘Yeah,’ said Cato, who’d used up his sympathy for defensive overstretched people a long time ago. ‘Cheers.’
In Kalgoorlie or Laverton or somewhere over that way, David Lance Samuels crossed paths with the man who would assume his identity, kill him and others, and try to kill Jacob Kwong. Phone calls and internet searches weren’t enough. Cato needed to be out there, nosing around.
Hutchens got what he wanted around eleven-thirty: a love heart from Special K and a thread into the conversation.
Dude! You are the Man! Like my dads shirt said #oldguysrock
So, Special K saw him as part of the game. Who are you calling old?
Camera never lies, big guy. Famous as! Page 7 in the Freo Gazette.
Just last week. The Media Unit had set it up: the human face of warmth and local experience behind the Commissioner’s new social media strategy. Constable fucking Care for the twenty-first century. People used to be scared of me, thought Hutchens, now they troll me. With impunity. Not any more.
David Samuels, wanted for questioning. Male, big, loves his dad, desperate to impress #whosyourdaddyBuzz?
Straight back from Special K.
not nice :( :( :( :( :(
A call from the AC again. ‘Enough, Mick. Pull it down. The boss is having kittens. She’s getting calls from the nerd desks at the newspapers and she doesn’t have a clue what they’re on about. She hates being behind the eight ball.’
Hutchens beamed. ‘No worries, sir.’
‘Anyway since when did you become an expert in this shit?’
‘I like to rise to any challenge presented to me, sir.’
‘We’ll see you at your leaving do, Hutchens. Make sure you leave.’
The daddy thing seemed to wind Samuels up. Was ‘daddy’ somebody Cato had put away in the last few years? Or was he the person who made Samuels tick? Drove him to murder? Where to start. The mental hospitals, the orphanages, where? Hutchens shook his head and logged off.
That evening some semblance of normality briefly returned to the household. Sharon had been surprised when Phil came home enthused about the idea of getting away for a while for some quality family time. A light had come back into his eyes, a fizz of energy had returned to their connection, they’d even had sex for the first time in a while. They had slung the camping gear into his Volvo for an early getaway. Camping wasn’t quite what she’d had in mind, particularly in this weather. She’d been thinking a B&B in Margaret River maybe, or a weekend in Melbourne, maybe pop down to see Dad in Bendigo. But he’d assured her the forecast was for things to improve.
‘Laverton?’ she’d asked. ‘Where’s that, what’s there?’
A shrug and a smile. ‘We’ll never, never know if we never, never go.’