Bad Seed (10 page)

Hutchens got the Police Union lawyer to persuade the judge to adjourn for a week. Burke QC wasn't too happy but to hell with him. The Police Union solicitor, a short motherly woman called Joan Peters, would read up on the story so far and have him in for a chat tomorrow. At this stage she had only two questions: did you phone Andy Crouch and did you kill the kiddie-fiddler?

‘Fucked if I know,' he said.

The truth was that both were a complete blank. In those years he was hitting the Jim Beam and Prozac pretty hard and he'd had a number of memory lapses and blackouts. He could have done anything. Maybe he should have kept a friggin' diary like Crouch and his bastard ‘memoirs'.

What he did remember, and what he knew was on record because he'd checked in preparation for this hearing, was that on Tuesday, October 21st, 1997 he'd been called out to an assault at the Mundaring Weir Hotel that early evening towards the end of his shift. He probably could have flick-passed it to someone else but he'd taken it. Some bloke had a broken stubby shoved in his face and the perp had legged it. It was all on CCTV and the barman knew who'd done it. They'd arrested the little prick at his mum's place in Chidlow the following morning. But that Tuesday evening, after taking the statements and viewing the security footage, was a blank. His partner that night was a detective constable called Vesna who'd given the job up two years later to have kids and then subsequently died of breast cancer at the age of thirty-nine. He remembered he'd quite fancied her and possibly had made a clumsy drunken pass at her one time at a work do. He must have decided to stay on at the Mundaring hotel for a drink or two. In those days that would have extended to half a dozen more. There'd be no CCTV to prove
it now but maybe the barman remembered him? Then Hutchens remembered something about the barman. He was a Pommie backpacker, long gone.

Maybe if he thought about something else completely for a while, then some nugget might return. He had an adjournment for a week and could get stuck back into the nitty-gritty of the job. He took out his mobile and rang Cato.

‘Got a bit of blue sky in my schedule, mate. Anything I need to know?'

Cato gave him the update but Hutchens found his attention wandering.

Driving back down the freeway he switched on the radio, Classic Hits, to try and take his mind off things. It was Barbara Streisand, ‘The Way We Were'. Could it be that it was all so simple then? Before 9/11 and Tampa, before Facebook and fucking Twitter. In 1997 Howard was in, Keating was out. Keating: now there was a man who knew how to wield a good insult and still keep his eyes on the big picture; a professorial intellect with the pugilistic instincts of a street fighter. These days it was all the bloody flag; he said – she said; dumb and dumber. Kids in the playground.

That next morning, arresting the prick in Chidlow. Why hadn't they arrested him the previous night, straight away? By the time they finished with the statements they'd gone two hours over shift's end. He'd probably had enough. Pass it over to the night crew, he'd have thought, get a few JBs down and unwind. And the night crew had failed to find the kid. That was it – he remembered now: next morning Hutchens showed up to work clean and without a hangover, he must have, otherwise Vesna would have got stuck into him and she didn't. So he must have got home that previous night; slept, showered, shaved, brushed his teeth. He couldn't check with Marjorie, they'd been going through a bad patch then and she often took the kids and stayed for weeks at her mum's. The grog, the attitude, it gave her the shits. The disbanding of Armed Robbery had hit him hard, it was his niche, his reason for getting out of bed in the morning. It took him a year and a marriage ultimatum to get over it.

Scattered pictures. So he'd turned up to work that day clean
and sober for a change. In some ways that was even more of a worry. Something must have shaken him into caring about how he presented to others. What was it?

Vesna had noticed something. Scraped raw knuckles and a graze on his chin. ‘Been fighting again?'

‘Nah. Ever tried opening one of those little plastic thimbles of milk?'

‘I'd stick to black coffee if I were you.'

‘I did, in the end.'

What's too painful to remember we simply smother with pills and booze. The song was getting to him, blurring his eyes, tightening his chest. He needed to get a grip and stop getting sentimental and soft. If he didn't watch it he'd end up like Cato.

Cato!

Now there was a bloke with a brain. A lateral thinker, a left-field sort of bloke. All those cryptic crosswords and tinkling on the Joanna. A Keating without the uppercut. He'd definitely come up with something to get Hutchens out of this basket of shit. He wouldn't be able to order Cato to do it though, like usual. It would have to be a favour. He'd have to ask him nicely. Woo the fucker.

Perspective. Cato needed to put it all in perspective. His ex-wife was just getting on with her life and Jake was just being a selfish teenager. They weren't doing this especially to make Cato feel bad, the world didn't revolve around him. There. Better? Not really, he thought, but probably nearer the truth. He wasn't sure which hurt more: Jane getting pregnant and remarrying, or Jake deciding he couldn't be bothered to come over for the weekend. Maybe the fact that they hurt at all was evidence that he really needed to get a life. Yet another year had slipped by and he was still single, still alone. No surprises there. All he did was work or stay at home. He never went to the places nor did the things that might help him meet normal people. Why? Maybe it was fear of failure. Maybe it was denial, an unreal hope that magically he, Jane and Jake might one day be a family again.

‘Cato, mate. I want to invite you to dinner.' Hutchens barged through Cato's office door and plonked himself down in a spare chair, breathless and flushed.

‘What? Me? Dinner?' Cato's day was going from bad to catastrophic. He wondered what he'd done wrong this time. He racked his brain for a recent misdemeanour that might have been sackable.

‘Yeah. Curry or something? What do people like you eat?'

‘Chinese people?' said Cato, bristling, wanting a fight with someone, anyone.

‘Nah, fuck that. Sensitive, thinking people.'

This was too much. It really was. ‘Well, normal food I guess, like everybody else.'

‘Really?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Good steak, then?'

‘Fine. Sure. Whatever.'

‘Great. When suits?' Hutchens seemed oblivious to Cato's state of emotional turmoil.

‘Tomorrow?'

‘It's a date. The Dav okay with you?'

‘Sure.' Cato wouldn't have sworn to it but he had the unnerving impression that Hutchens was thinking about giving him a hug. He changed the subject. Work. That was it, bury it all in work. ‘You'll be after an update.'

‘The Tans?' said Hutchens, frowning in a show of concentration.

Cato outlined the story so far. The most promising bit seemed to be the rogue DNA in the master bedroom. Hutchens nodded in all the right places. Cato wanted to know why his boss was back in the game. ‘You mentioned blue sky in your schedule. Something happen at the Inquiry?'

Hutchens clapped him on the shoulder. ‘I'll tell you all about it over a nice piece of Scotch fillet tomorrow, mate.'

Cato couldn't wait.

Lara looked at the screen. The pulsing shifting shape. The life that was growing inside her. Mesmerising. She gripped John's hand tighter as the ultrasound glided over her belly. The beeps and beats and the muffled roar. John seemed hypnotised too, eyes full with emotion even though he had been here before – he already had two kids from his first marriage. The one she broke up.

‘Do you want to know the sex?' The technician seemed as excited as them, maybe it was part of her training.

‘No,' said John.

‘Yes,' said Lara.

‘So?' said the technician, hand monitor hovering over the goo on Lara's tummy.

‘I want to know,' said Lara. ‘It just seems right.' Her eyes searched John's face. Farmer John. He'd given his gorgeous bulk over to her on demand that first night they met for a quiet drink. He'd taught her things, about the job. She'd taught him a few things too. But what surprised her was how quickly it had moved from just another conquest to something deeper. She loved him and it was mutual. They were head over heels, still, two years on, through the ugliness of his divorce, through the long antisocial hours of the job. He was a keeper. He'd given up on the undercover spook stuff and moved up the food chain. He was a nine-to-five desk jockey at Police HQ. He got his adrenalin from her now, he said, and he didn't need the heroics anymore. She was the one keeping the shit hours and it was
beginning to scare her. Could she have it all? The job she had coveted for so long, this man, this child? A family?

‘Okay.' A nervous smile drifted across his face. They locked on the screen again.

‘It's a girl, isn't it?' Lara felt she might crush John's big hand.

‘Yes,' said the technician.

‘Our little girl.' Lara smiled through her tears. ‘Our beautiful baby.'

Cato woke with a hangover. He'd sulked his way through a full bottle of Shiraz before falling into bed and dreaming he and Jane were still together and about to have a baby. He'd woken up happy for a moment or two before he realised. He doused himself under the shower and padded to the kitchen to make a plunger of coffee and some toast. On the way he stubbed his toe on the piano. No wonder, it was so long since he'd played it, why would he remember it was still there? There was the half-done Guido crossword left over from earlier in the week.
Match token.
Seven and four. Wedding ring. Very funny.

Cato smeared some vegemite onto his toast and chewed without enthusiasm, flicking on the radio to distract him from his evil self-centred thoughts. The Tan family massacre was still up there but getting vaguer by the day; police were following various leads and appealing for anybody who knew anything to come forward. On the hustings, the politicians had taken a break from bashing asylum seekers and finding black holes in each other's costings to ruminate on whether selling the ailing family farm to the Chinese was really in the national interest. Nothing meant by it, you understand, just a thought. Dog-whistle politics, almost subtle compared to the baying three-word slogans dominating the rest of the election campaign. His phone rang, he silenced the radio.

‘We've found our Port Coogee vandal.' Chris Thornton's voice had risen in pitch. He could barely contain himself.

‘Where is he now?'

‘She. Her name is Ocean Mantra. Freo girl. Walked in off the street to volunteer her services. She's in reception jangling her piercings. Ready when you are.'

The name seemed familiar but Cato couldn't think why. ‘Be there in fifteen.'

Ocean Mantra took a seat in the interview room and declined the offer of a hot beverage. Her outfit was a baggy mix of ex-army cast offs and tie-dye, topped off with piercings and blonde dreadlocks. Underneath the metal was the pixie face of a twelve year old and a heart-melting smile. She'd got word that people were asking after her, knew about the murders from the news, and joined the dots. She identified herself. Her full name was Ocean Mantra Davies, she was twenty, and studying Architecture at UWA. Cato recognised her from a poster he'd seen one time in X-Wray Café, she was a singer-songwriter he seemed to recall.

‘Not anymore. I gave up on all that whale song shit last year. I'm into direct action now.'

Bless her rainbow cotton socks. ‘The night of Sunday, August fourth. Do you remember where you were?' Cato had cautioned her that she might be incriminating herself in relation to the vandalism but it didn't seem to be a problem.

‘Writing “wanker” on a jet ski in Port Coogee.'

‘Address? Time?' Ocean couldn't remember the exact address but her description matched the one round the corner from the murder scene. She reckoned it was around 11 p.m.