The manager of the Dragonfly mine was the hard, sinewy, unyielding type. If he hadn’t been managing a pit he would have been running the young thugs on his remand wing and scaring everybody, screws included, shitless. If the man had been thirty years younger Cato would have had him top of the list for throwing David Lance Samuels down a mineshaft and stealing his identity. But perhaps you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.
‘Bob,’ he said. ‘Bob Peake. Can I see that ID of yours again?’ Cato obliged. ‘Kwong. Chinese. They own this place. Some consortium in bloody Shanghai. They’ll run the world soon, I reckon.’
Yeah, thought Cato. Met your type before. ‘What do you mine here?’
‘Lithium. For the batteries for all those gadgets we can’t get enough of. The Chinks especially. No offence.’
No offence. People seemed to be saying it more and more these days. It had long since lost its currency. People no longer gave a damn whether they were being offensive or not because free speech gave everybody the right to be a bigot and that was high on the list of national priorities, right up there with slashing welfare. So, was Dragonfly on the list of assets owned by the Shanghai entrepreneur Cato had helped bring down? His mind was grasping at any possible clues from his past. No. Stay focused. ‘David Lance Samuels, young Kiwi bloke, worked here before he went missing. Remember him?’
‘Yeah, he stuck out like a sore thumb. Bible-basher. Didn’t fit in with the pisspot degenerates we usually have on the payroll.’
‘Did that cause any problems? The religion? Anyone take offence?’ That word again.
‘Nah. They take the mickey but nobody fights over theology around here.’ An afterthought. ‘Depending on the religion, I suppose.’
‘Godforsaken place to come and work, for a fella like him, I mean.’
A shrug. ‘Kiwis. Their economy’s fucked. Need the money, don’t they?’
Something jagged in Cato’s memory. ‘Where did Samuels come from?’
‘New Zealand, like I said.’
‘What I meant was, where did the company find him? I did a check on the website and there wasn’t much in the way of situations vacant. Does Dragonfly hire directly or subcontract all that?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘I’ll decide that.’
A shrug. ‘Subcontractors.’
‘Any in particular? Names?’
‘Different ones.’
‘Names?’
‘Give me your email and I’ll send them through. Need to check with them first.’
‘No, you don’t.’
‘Yes.’ A locking of eyes. ‘I do.’
Cato changed tack. ‘Anybody he connected with, any pals?’
‘Not that I noticed but I’m not the pastoral care type anyway. Shift’s end, I’m in my donga watching a video or sleeping.’
‘The weekend he disappeared, what do you remember about that?’
‘I told the cops already. The Kalgoorlie ones.’
‘Tell me.’
Bob checked the time on his mobile, spun it absent-mindedly on the desk. ‘He was heading south to do some fishing. He had five days off. He didn’t come back. I gave it a few days in case he’d just gone on a bender.’
‘Then what?’
‘I told my superiors.’
‘And?’
‘Left it with them. They must have sat on it as well and done nothing because it wasn’t until two or three days later the Kal cops come calling. His folks in Kiwi-land had reported him missing.’
‘What did they find out? The Kal cops?’
‘Are you checking up on them or something?’
Cato levelled his gaze at Peake. ‘Just tell me and I’ll be gone, soon as you like.’
Bob squinted back. ‘Ute never found, Samuels never found, no sightings, nothing.’
‘Did he go fishing a lot?’
‘Most leave periods he’d be off. Gun it via Norseman and you can be on the south coast in four or five hours.’
‘Anything else?’ Cato handed him a business card with his mobile and email contacts on it.
‘He was a good fisherman, always brought back a big feed and shared it around.’ A pause. ‘He was a good kid. I hope you find out what happened to him.’
When Cato got back to the campsite Sharon and Ella weren’t there. There was nothing apparently amiss, no sign of a struggle or violence. And he couldn’t see the BabyBjorn, so odds-on Sharon had just gone exploring. Still. He studied the ground. At the northern corner, her footsteps, deepened by the weight of Ella, disappeared as sand gave way to bush. He wondered how far she’d gone. Thought it might have been more considerate of her to at least leave him a note.
‘Sharon?’ he called. ‘I’m back.’
No answer. Breeze rustling the low scrub and something scurrying in the undergrowth. A flash from a distant low hill. Binoculars? Was there someone out there?
‘Shaz?’ He found himself following the trail. The buzzing of the flies seemed suddenly louder in his ears. Senses on high alert. ‘You there?’
A rabbit broke from cover and bounded away in front of him. Cato tried to picture whether they were on the right or wrong side of the rabbit-proof fence. And what the hell that mattered anyway.
‘Sharon?’ His call was louder, a shout. Surely she couldn’t have gone so far that she couldn’t hear him. He looked around, behind him. He could no longer see their campsite or her footprints. Was she lost? Was he lost?
Retrace steps. That was the sensible thing and she’d realise that too.
Wait by the car. They’ll come. Relax.
Flies worried at his face. He waved them away. Surprised to find his gun was in his hand. When did that happen? ‘Sharon?’
His voice cracked, his chest tightened, vision swam. He was finding it hard to breathe. He sat down in the red dust and started sobbing.
Mick Hutchens was treating Deb Hassan and Chris Thornton to lunch and they were suspicious as hell.
‘Go for your life,’ he beamed. ‘My shout.’
He’d brought them well away from downtown Freo to the Left Bank down by the river. It was a good place to go if you didn’t want to risk colleagues passing by and wondering what the hell you were up to. They had a window table near a group of rowdy real estate types readying to carve up the coastline once again. The noise of their wine-soaked bravado suited Hutchens’ purposes very well.
‘So,’ he said, dipping his sourdough into a dish of EVOO, ‘what’s the Velvet Hammer got you on these days?’
‘Going through Sarge’s old cases and cross-referencing them with recent prisoner releases.’ Thornton dabbed his bread into the oil and left a drip trail across the tablecloth on the way to his mouth.
‘You?’ Hutchens turned to Hassan.
‘Still interviewing other clients at the gym Samuels attended.’
Out the window, a pelican launched itself from a jetty post and glided low across the water before lifting onto an identical post a hundred metres away. Probably escaping the guffaws of the housing developers. Hutchens took a sip of shiraz. ‘Waste of time, isn’t it?’
Neither nodded, neither shook their head. Hassan’s Greek salad arrived and she suddenly found it very interesting.
‘Cato deserves better,’ said Hutchens. ‘And we are going to do whatever we can to help him.’
‘Yeah?’ said Thornton. ‘How?’
‘You can narrow your search down to Cato’s cases where I’ve been actively involved, not just as supervising officer.’ He elaborated on the killer’s fixation with Cato and, more recently, him. ‘He recognises me, made me part of his agenda too. And it’s not ex-cons we’re looking at, it’s the son of a con who is either still inside or perhaps has died in the last year or two.’ Thornton was taking notes on his iPhone. ‘And look for the letter K.’
‘K?’
‘It’s special, it has some meaning to the killer.’ The bill was being presented to the rowdy realtors, rolled up and tossed on the floor contemptuously by one who chucked his credit card onto the waiter’s tray. Wanker. ‘And follow the money,’ said Hutchens. ‘Samuels couldn’t do what he did on casual doorman’s wages. Where’s the money coming from?’ Hutchens surveyed his newly arrived fish and chips and attacked with relish, jabbing a chip in the direction of Hassan. ‘Drop the gym buddies. Get back to that homeless charity where Samuels worked and roast them. They took the fucker into their flock and I want to know why. You don’t just walk off the streets these days and say let me loose on your waifs and strays. You’re meant to have clearances, references whatever.’
‘What about Pavlou?’ Thornton toppled his seafood stack.
‘Leave her to me.’
Hassan pushed her salad away and stole a forkful of Hutchens’ chips. ‘Why are we here? The cloak and dagger? The lunchtime treat?’
‘Because,’ he said, fencing her fork away with his, ‘we’re not going to tell Pavlou. We’re going to find this bastard and then I’m going to kill him.’
‘I know you mean well, boss. But I don’t think we’re allowed to.’
‘Leave that to me to worry about, Deb. That’s why I assume the burden of leadership.’
Sharon had taken over the driving. Ella was asleep in the back and Phil had mercifully dropped off in the front beside her. She was worried about him. Very worried. They had packed up the camping gear and were now heading south to the coast. A bank of black cloud loomed on the horizon and it seemed as if the long straight road ahead was pulling them into a mass of darkness. After so many years in the thriving concrete beehive of Beijing, the empty highways of the Western Australian outback were as alien to her as a moonscape. Even growing up in country Victoria, things had never seemed quite as stark and extreme as this: huge, beautiful and terrifying. Wandering through the bush near the campsite with Ella strapped to her, Sharon had been in awe of the otherness of the place: the scrubby trees, the hard, dry, dark red earth, the sharp blue sky, the low hum and click of insects. Shattered by the heartbreaking sound and sight of Phil weeping, curled up on the ground like a whipped child.
She looked at him asleep now: mouth slightly open, snoring softly, an anxious frown still creasing his forehead. Would they ever get to the other side of this? They were approaching the town of Norseman and her phone beeped. She checked it, a message from her AFP contact, and some names. The names meant nothing to her.
‘Where are we?’
‘Norseman. Sleep well?’
‘Yeah, good thanks.’ He nodded towards the phone. ‘Anything interesting?’
‘Nah,’ she said. ‘Just work.’
Why hadn’t she passed the names on to him? Was she afraid he might do something even more terrible if he knew? Bring down yet more disaster on them? Secrets. Lies. She was doing exactly what she’d chastised him for. They were as bad as each other. She would enquire further. Firm it up, narrow it down, and send it all through to Phil’s colleagues to be dealt with properly. Sharon checked the rear-vision. Just the one car, way back in the distance. Ahead of them, the storm.
Hutchens had prised Deb Hassan out of DI Pavlou’s grasp fairly easily by offering Morose McMahon back as temporary compensation and claiming a spike in the city workload needed the kind of local knowledge that Deb had in spades. What she’d been doing for Pavlou’s team was donkey work after all, to which McMahon was well suited. Chris Thornton was another matter: he had a gift for background research which went beyond the soulless world of metadata, bytes and beeps inhabited by the geeks in IT. Thornton was able to draw a story from it all. If they weren’t careful, the lad would be press-ganged by Pavlou into Major Crime for good. Same old story, just like the Dockers, spend years grooming a good player then sell him to another team to kick goals there instead.
‘Just widen your search parameters, she won’t care — she’s too busy looking for a career-saving exit strategy.’
‘I’ve noticed that about management.’ Thornton tapped his keyboard. ‘I’m watching and learning.’
‘Good lad. If you’re lucky, you’ll get through to retirement like me with a warm glow of satisfaction from decades of selfless giving to the community.’
‘That warm glow might come in handy in winter. You’ll probably lose your pension after they find out you’ve killed Samuels.’
‘You and Cato. Everybody’s worried about my pension. No need, the missus is a financial planner, we’ll be living off other people’s life savings, we’ll be fine.’
Thornton swung his screen around to give Hutchens a better view. ‘Five names, a couple of K’s in there too, any of them mean anything?’
Hutchens frowned. ‘Only five? Thought I’d made a lot more enemies than that over the years. Bit fucking disappointed, actually.’
Bob Peake had finished for the day and was ready to pop a tinnie and chuck on a video. He was on his way past the casual dongas where the blokes hot-bedded between shifts much to the disgust of the union but the Chinese owners didn’t give a fuck about that. Chinese, they don’t let up once they’ve got the bit between their teeth. Like that cop this morning, he wasn’t going away any time soon. Fair enough, he was only doing his job but you don’t need people sticking their noses in where they’re not wanted, who knows what they’ll find.
He poked his head around the door of Samuels’ old donga, well used by others since the Kal cops had taken a quick look through but not deemed it worthy of the crime-scene treatment. He’d been relieved that the Chink hadn’t requested the same: maybe not as sharp as he appeared, or maybe he’d be back any day now with reinforcements. The dark patch low on the wall was still there, blindingly obvious if you knew what you were looking for. It seemed to Peake that the bleachy metallic smell was still there too but imagination is a powerful thing, plays tricks like you wouldn’t believe.
The air stirred and a shadow crossed behind him. He turned.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘It’s you.’
Deb Hassan knocked on Hutchens’ door late afternoon. ‘Finally got hold of that bloke from Street Angels, he’s a hard man to nail down, never in the office and never answers his phone or emails.’
Hutchens lifted his eyes from his laptop and nodded, impatient.
‘He said Cato was in there a couple of days ago. Took some letter away with him that none of us knew about.’
‘Letter?’
‘A character reference for a David Lance Samuels. Some volunteer supervisor had it at home and only dropped it in the office in the last few days.’
‘Gist?’
‘Some pastor in New Zealand reckoned Samuels was a nice bloke.’
‘New fucking Zealand? Where’s this going, Deb?’
‘Cato’s house is empty and he’s not answering his phone. The neighbourhood watch bloke up the street saw them packing and leaving for what looked like a camping trip. Maybe we should be tracking Sarge’s phone, see where he’s headed. Might be something, might be nothing.’
‘Funny time to go off camping. Your son in intensive care.’ Hutchens’ eyes flicked back to the computer screen. ‘Kal cops are trending. Something big going on over there.’
They reached Esperance as the sun was setting. Anglers were out on the long jetty, wrapped up tight against the biting wind. The rain clouds stayed out over the Southern Ocean, procrastinating about whether or not to make landfall, turning the water gunmetal grey in the meantime. Cato couldn’t be bothered putting up the tent in these conditions and booked them into a motel unit on the seafront instead.
He remembered his last time here: blood and baby formula spilt across the back seat of an old green Landrover. The man whose life he’d ended on the salt flats out at Lake King. As the kilometres had ticked down from Norseman to here, his suspicion had grown as to who it was that he was dealing with. Peake’s discomfort with some of the questioning fuelled Cato’s speculation. Things still didn’t make full sense: the face he’d seen on the driving licence photo didn’t just bear the transformations of boy to man, it was as if a mask was in place, concealing the original identity. The ages didn’t match but they were going off the age on Samuels’ ID, not the real age of the person they were looking for.
‘Phil?’ Sharon emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel, hair glistening around her bare shoulders as she dried it with a second towel. Behind her on the muted TV, a news flash: pictures streamed live from a helicopter hovering over a patch of red dust and sheds in the outback, police wrapping tape around trees, forensics moving in, a white tent, flashing lights on an ambulance. A banner headline sliding across the bottom of the screen. BREAKING. MAN CRITICAL AFTER VICIOUS ASSUALT AT LAVERTON MINE SITE. Then there was a photo of Bob Peake, the mine manager. ‘Phil, if we’re extending this trip I really need to get some more undies.’
Cato looked at his wife, and at his daughter snoozing in the capsule. They were his world. Nobody was going to take them from him, he would die to ensure it. He clasped Sharon in a tight embrace, breathing her in.
‘Sure. How about tomorrow?’ He flicked the TV off with the remote. ‘Let’s go and eat.’
Cato knew he wasn’t far behind the man who claimed to be David Lance Samuels. But it was clear that Samuels wasn’t far behind him either.