Bad Seed (29 page)

No, thought Cato. This is not right. ‘Sure,' he said.

‘Chuck any “loose ends” into your concluding paragraph if that makes you feel better.'

‘Okay.' Count on it.

They were dismissed. Michael the ACC man hadn't said a single word in the whole meeting. Come to that he hadn't said a single word since Cato had first glimpsed him a few weeks ago. What was the point of him? Cato's inbox started to fill with the jigsaw of the Tans' final hours. He dutifully set to piecing them together, ignoring any holes in the picture and crafting his conclusions to fit Pavlou's needs. In effect, by day's end she should be able to ship out back to the Major Crime suites up in Perth. He didn't intend to hold her up.

Marjorie and Melanie would be en route to Augusta, three hundred or so kilometres south. Hutchens dragged Mundine's name out of the system. Know thine enemy. He'd already done a cursory printout on the charge sheet to prepare himself for the Inquiry but he hadn't realised then what he was dealing with. Now the matter certainly warranted closer inspection.

David Christopher Mundine was just past his twelfth birthday when he was sent to Hillsview Hostel late in 1995. His mother was in Bandyup on drugs and various dishonesty charges and his father was an unknown quantity. David was a troubled child, coming to the attention of successive juvenile justice teams for stealing, vandalism, drug, and alcohol offences. It was hoped that time away from his dropkick mother in an environment with rules might do him some good. The warden, Peter Sinclair, had a reputation for being ‘tough but fair'. There was very little recidivism on his watch – none of the kids ever wanted to go back for more.

Soon after Sinclair's disappearance in late October 1997, Mundine returned to the family home. Mum had been out of Bandyup a good six months already but expressed an inability to cope and asked if
the authorities could hold on to David a little while longer until she was ready. David, meanwhile, was completing an anger management course at the hostel. By early November, Hillsview had more than enough problems of its own and sent fourteen year old David home to Mum, ready or not. It took less than a month for the boy to reappear before yet another juvenile justice team. This time he'd used his recently acquired height and bulk to menace money out of a younger kid at school. Several times. The menaces had been not only violent but also sexual in nature and had involved inappropriate touching to illustrate his point. David was transferred to another school and ordered to attend yet another round of counselling sessions. He never showed up at the new school or the counselling sessions and, from what Hutchens could make of the records, nobody bothered to follow it up.

More charges. More recommendations for counselling. More absences. Some time in Banksia Hill Juvenile Detention Centre at the age of sixteen where he kept his nose clean and kept out of trouble. The next ten years or so were peppered with more petty drug and alcohol offences, dishonesty convictions, assaults and some vandalism, his charge sheet looking very similar to his mother's before him. Two years ago a violence restraining order had been taken out on him by a de facto, Lisa Gangemi. It had since expired.

Mundine presented as a Class-A pathetic fuck-up, more a victim than a perpetrator. But there were clues to his more proactive potential. The extortion with menaces at high school and the more recent VRO suggested a very different temperament from his Inquiry persona of Little Davey the Victim. Hutchens went through the database and put together a TO DO list.

Reviewing the evidence, Cato was satisfied that Yu Guangming played a central role in the murders of the Tan family and had almost convinced himself that the business connections to Des O'Neill were little more than a distracting ‘look over there' from the wily Thomas Li. Almost. He was also pretty much satisfied that Matthew Tan was not in the frame, based on his convincing display on the news of the
murders, on his alibis, and on the lack of any compelling forensic evidence. Pretty much. Maybe the stowaway was just some street kid messing about, or he'd found a nice warm spot for a sleep and wasn't expecting to wake up in transit somewhere. Maybe.

His phone rang. It was Jane.

‘Is Jake with you?'

‘No. Why?'

‘I just found a message from the school on my phone. They say he didn't turn up today.'

‘You've tried his phone?'

‘Yes, of course I have. No answer.'

‘How have things been?'

‘How do you mean?'

‘Before I went away, he came over. Said he wanted to come and live with me. Things didn't seem to be going too well.'

‘When was this?'

‘Over a week ago. I left messages but I was going to call you to talk about it properly. I forgot. Work and that.'

‘Work and that,' she repeated icily. ‘What else did he say?'

‘Not much more. He said Simon had been getting at him about his mates. Do you know what that's about?'

‘Simon reckons some of his mates are deadbeats, probably on the dope like a lot of kids their age. He's been around. He can spot them a mile off.'

‘So, what do you think?'

‘I think I'm doing the best I possibly can to hold some bloody family life together.' An exasperated sigh. ‘Give me a call if or when your son gets in touch.' The line went dead.

Cato tried Jake's mobile. No answer. He sent him a text.
Call me. Dad.

Call me Dad. After missing out on a huge chunk of Jake's formative years due to his obsession with work, Cato believed he had found some connection with his son. Now it seemed to be slipping away again. Was he to blame? Probably. Should he be worried? Worst case scenario, the boy was shooting up in a crack den and about to go and bludge a pensioner to death. Or he was at his mate's listening
to rap music and doing a couple of bongs. Neither option appealed to Cato but he had to try and maintain some perspective. And short of suspending his day and sending out a search party, he had little choice.

Outside it had clouded over again but they didn't look like rain clouds. He ventured out for some late lunch, treating himself to a seafood laksa down the road at Café 55. On the way he tried phoning his sister to organise a Dad visit. No answer, so he left a message. Café 55 was crowded as usual but he found a perch on a stool facing a wall festooned with posters for upcoming cultural events around Fremantle. Nearby there was an abandoned
West
and a virgin cryptic. He clicked his biro in readiness.

Dishonest stock-taker. Six and seven. The laksa arrived and he made space for it on the narrow counter.
Cattle rustler.

Imagine one less mix up to a mystery.
Enigma.

Cato decided that he was sick of carrying passengers. Michael the mystery ACC man needed to start earning his keep. He put in a call then got stuck into his laksa. It was delicious.

Hutchens lifted all the virtual rocks in the database and peered beneath, but Lisa Gangemi was nowhere to be found. She'd dropped off the face of the earth, or at least the immediate public record. David Mundine's mum was easier. She was back in Bandyup. But it would still be highly irregular for Hutchens to approach her. Luck, however, moves in mysterious ways. Hutchens put in a call to Cato.

‘Got anything on?'

There was hubbub in the background. ‘The remains of a laksa and Pavlou's report so she can be on her merry way by day's end.'

‘Amen to that,' said Hutchens. ‘Got time for a trip to Bandyup?'

‘Why?'

‘The mannequin upskirter we pulled in week before last?'

‘Yes?'

‘Possibly part of a disturbing pattern.'

‘Serious?'

‘Am I ever not?'

They opted for South and Roe to take them out and around the urban sprawl and north to Bandyup Women's Prison. Hutchens filled Cato in en route.

‘So our upskirter is a former de facto of this Tricia Mundine who's locked up?'

‘Yeah,' said Hutchens. ‘He was the love of her life for a few weeks earlier this year.'

‘And she can attest that he was a bit weird back then?'

‘Yeah, bound to.'

‘And this warrants the attention of a detective inspector and a detective sergeant?'

‘Acting,' Hutchens reminded him. ‘Look it's a matter of public safety and wellbeing, mate.'

‘It's bullshit. What's really going on?'

Hutchens told Cato everything. Except the bit about getting some pals to put the frighteners on Mundine.

‘No wonder you've been looking like a walking cardiac arrest.'

‘Thanks, mate.'

‘What do you want to know from her?'

‘Any more history on her darling son, although she doesn't seem to have been around much in his formative years.'

‘Okay.'

‘And anything I can use to neutralise him.'

‘A taser's probably your best option.'

‘It's on my list.' They pulled into Bandyup car park. Squat pale buildings, barbed wire, bleak-looking visitors, and some complaining crows to set the scene. ‘Good luck,' said Hutchens. ‘And thanks.'

As Cato strolled away towards reception, Hutchens felt another tightening in his chest and reached for his angina spray.

‘Ian who?'

‘Ian Rigby. Your former partner. You took a restraining order out against him back in February.'

‘Did I?' Tricia Mundine was struggling to catch up. Cato could
sympathise. A few months inside for unpaid fines had done little to purge her inner workings. She had a hacking smoker's cough and the complexion of a Rolling Stone. ‘What for?'

Cato checked the paperwork. ‘Violence, harassment, threats. It says here.'

‘I put that on all of them.'

And so she did. She was a serial restrainer. For her the VRO system was a means of retaliating against people who had wronged her in any way: the next-door neighbour for complaining about the noise, an old boyfriend for leaving her, or not leaving her. Twenty-three and counting. And Tricia Mundine wasn't alone in using the system to score petty grudges. The VRO paper wastage in Perth could have fuelled Collie Power Station for decades. No wonder they were practically unpoliceable. It was a pity about those that were genuine and foreshadowed serious domestic violence or even murder. They never stood out from the mass until it was usually too late.