Bad Seed (37 page)

Hutchens was relieved to see the paddy wagon parked outside. The occupant was a young bloke fresh out of the Academy, alert, awake, and keen. His name was Jason. After Jason had checked Hutchens' ID they exchanged pleasantries and left each other to it. The neighbour's dog barked at the rain; useless mongrel. Hutchens rapped lightly on the front door and went on in. Marjorie was pleased and puzzled to see him.

‘How did you get here? I thought you were in hospital?'

‘Baz brought me in his Cessna. The doctor gave me the all-clear.' He went round everyone giving them hugs, except the old bloke, he was a handshakes only type. Melanie seemed cool. ‘Sorry about all this, love.'

‘No worries,' she said. ‘Good to see Nanna and Pops again.'

‘Ryan out on a film?'

‘Bush south of Norseman, the life and times of a professional dog shooter. Some Serb ex-paramilitary.'

‘Lovely,' said Hutchens. ‘SBS is it?'

‘Have you eaten, dear?' said Nanna.

‘No Anne, I haven't. What you got?' He rustled up his hungry face, the one they all knew, like this was just another day.

She headed off to the kitchen to find something. Pops settled back into his favourite chair in front of the fire and resumed the crossword. He and Cato would get on well – they didn't speak much, both lived in their heads. Wind and rain lashed the windows and
a dog barked in the distance. Marjorie wrapped an arm around his waist.

‘Cato said you had a heart scare?'

‘Nothing love, all good.' This wasn't the time to go into detail.

‘Did they give you tablets or something?'

He patted his pocket reassuringly, feeling the weight of the Glock there. ‘Shake, rattle and roll.'

‘Do you really think this bloke is going to try something?'

Pops was listening in. His pen hovered over the cryptic. Hutchens noticed the .303 propped in the corner beside the firewood basket. ‘Not with Bill and me on the case, he won't.' He winked at Pops. ‘That right, Bill?'

‘Yep.'

The dog from a few doors down barked again. Louder this time.

Cato was climbing into the plane at Jandakot when his phone went. The ten-man Ninja team were already in their seats, hardware stowed. Two were snoozing, others checking their phones or listening to iPods. There was a spare seat beside their leader, a bloke called Dave who Cato had encountered before. Cato's phone buzzed again.

‘That'll be for you,' said Dave, not looking up from his iPad.

It was a text from Thornton.

Call me

He did. ‘We need to make it quick, mate, the plane's about to start up.'

‘Lisa Gangemi.' Mundine's former de facto who'd taken out a restraining order against him a few years back. ‘She skipped the state and went to Townsville not long after the VRO. Changed her name.'

‘How'd you find her?'

‘Ways and means. Thing is, she's now a missing person in Queensland under her new name.'

‘Missing how long?'

‘Since about a year ago.'

The propellers started up. ‘Nothing?'

‘Not a trace.'

They finished the call.

‘Santa?' TRG Dave's nickname for Cato. One night, two years earlier, Dave had found Cato wandering in bushland with a sack over his shoulder. Cato had been doing some Method Detecting, searching for a missing body, the sack meant to replicate the weight of a corpse. Dave tapped the screen of his iPad which held the operational briefing. ‘This bloke dangerous, you reckon?'

Paul Scott Morrison. Peter Sinclair. Perhaps Lisa Gangemi too.

‘Yes,' said Cato. ‘I think he is.'

Hutchens polished off a cheese toastie and a piece of carrot cake. They'd already eaten. Bill liked his dinner at 5.30. On the dot. They settled in to watch the seven o'clock news and Hutchens went around the house checking doors and windows. What was the likely outcome here? Fuckface comes through the door like Norman Bates on meth, and he and Bill mow the bastard down in a hail of gunfire? Sweet. That would solve a few problems. But was it really going to happen? Maybe Mundine had just sloped off to a mate's to do a few bongs and jerk off and they were all getting excited about nothing. How long was he supposed to wait here to find out? Maybe they should all just pack up and hightail it back to Perth. Check into a hotel and put some guards on the door.

No.

That way the problem didn't go away. Something told him that one way or another they were obliged to sit it out here in Footrot Flats until the bitter end.

The doors and windows all seemed secure enough. Bill was like that. Handy. Reliable. Always fixing things. Sometimes when they were in Perth on a visit Bill would pop around while Hutchens was at work and fix some tap that had been dripping for the last nine months and Marjorie would give him her disappointed look when he got home that night.

The dog down the road was going berko. They should bring it in out of the rain.

Then the lights went out.

Cato and the Ninjas landed in Augusta just after 8 p.m. The pilot had struggled to bring the twelve-seater in through bouncing gusts. Cato noticed a few seasoned hard men gripping their armrests on the way down. Two minibuses, commandeered from local schools, were waiting at the airstrip with their Augusta police drivers. The pilot was happy to decamp to the town motel until the weather passed and they were all ready to go home. The local OIC confirmed that he had a bloke in place at the property in East Augusta but hadn't communicated directly with the occupants as the phone lines were down.

‘Jason popped his head around the door half an hour ago and everything seemed to be fine. He said your colleague Mr Hutchens has arrived.' The OIC smiled reassuringly like that must have been good news and all part of the plan. Cato thanked him and they moved off.

The two-bus convoy was joined by a couple of extra paddy wagons from Margaret River and Nannup. All in all, a police contingent of eighteen including Cato – two more if you counted Hutchens and Jason, the solitary guard over in East Augusta. A cast of thousands. If this was just a false alarm then Cato's job was on the line.

Dave and half of his crew suited up in transit as the buses sped through the Augusta township, north up Bussell Highway then out east along Brockman Highway and around to East Augusta. Night-vision goggles slid into place and machine guns ratcheted. Meanwhile the other half of the TRG squad plus the four officers
from Margaret River and Nannup drove down to the Augusta town jetty and took the short cut by boat across the river.

Cato tried both the Hutchens' mobiles but there was no reply.

Hutchens took the Glock out of his jacket pocket and went into the sitting room. The fire was still alive in the grate and gave off its flickering orange glow. Bill had also located a couple of torches and drawn everyone into a huddle in the centre of the room, ever the boy scout, but on this occasion Hutchens could have hugged him.

‘Everyone okay?' said Hutchens.

Melanie's lower lip wobbled but she nodded.

‘It's probably just the storm,' said Bill. ‘It's happened before, more than once.'

Hutchens flicked his eyes towards Bill's .303 parked in the corner. Bill got the message and went to retrieve it.

‘I'll pop out and check with Jason. See what he knows.' Hutchens took a spare torch from Bill and ventured outside.

The rain was still driving hard and the wind tugged at his jacket. Twigs, dust and leaves flew through the air, stinging his exposed skin. It was black dark. The power was out on neighbouring properties. Perhaps Bill was right and it was a storm outage, nothing more. Hutchens swung the torch and its beam found the paddy wagon still in place with Jason in the driving seat, his head resting against the side window. The bastard was having a snooze. As Hutchens stepped forward, his foot sank into a pothole and his ankle twisted. Pain shot through his leg and he lost balance. He dropped the torch as he tried to right himself. The torch rolled into a water-filled ditch and the light died.

Jason would have one. Hutchens limped up to the driver's window and tapped. He'd framed some choice expletives in his mind for the bollocking he was about to dish out. Jason didn't respond. Hutchens grabbed the door handle and yanked. Jason fell out. Lifeless and limp. Despite the rain and blackness Hutchens could see that Jason's shirt front was covered in dark liquid that could only have been blood. Hutchens heard a scrape behind him.

‘Mr H.'

He ducked and felt a glancing blow off the side of his neck. Mundine was using a hammer. Ducking again, another one came to the shoulder. He lifted his arms to fend off the attack, felt a burning sensation along the bottom of his forearm. He bowed his head, aware he was already losing it. He could see his blood mixing with the rain on the ground, lots of it, flowing freely with the thinning medication.

Don't bleed. You might never stop.

The sound of footsteps and voices approaching through the bush. Flashlights, several of them, a few hundred metres away.

The blows stopped. A whisper in his ear and Mundine's familiar sour-milk breath smell. ‘We're not finished yet, Mr H. Let's be getting you back inside. Quiet now, think of that lovely family of yours.'

Hutchens was lifted by his collar, his own Glock pressed into his neck.

Bill was waiting at the front door. There was momentary confusion as he tried to register the changed situation. It was all the time Mundine needed to shoot him.

‘Shot fired.'

With those words over Dave's UHF, the siege began. By the time Cato and the remaining contingent arrived, the house was surrounded and a cordon had been established a hundred metres either way. The nearest house was empty. The one beyond that, with a yapping labradoodle, was just beyond the cordon. Dave summoned the owner, a young woman in a zebra-patterned onesie.

‘What's its name?'

She bent down to hug the animal. ‘His name is Jezza.'

‘Quieten Jezza or he dies.'

Jezza was taken inside.