Getting Warmer Read Free

Johnny-boy’s doing his number twos, door locked, and somebody slits his throat. That right?’ DI Hutchens was staring at Lara, waiting for a response.
    ‘The pants were undone, sir, but not pulled down. He hadn’t got as far as that.’
    A cordon tape had been strung around the outside of the nightclub. The lanky funereal Duncan Goldflam and his forensics team were already at work. Metal stepping plates led to the locus and some bloody footprints and other items of interest had been isolated, photographed and numbered. The place was lit up like a film set, distorted shadows played across the wall.
    ‘So where does our assassin come from? The gap under the door? Over the top of the partition? Up through the bowl?’
    ‘Too early to speculate, sir.’
    ‘Come on, Lara, that’s what we’re paid for. I was just telling Cato here, we’re forgetting how to be coppers.’
    Cato Kwong had sidled up to within earshot. Lara gave him a friendly nod and a smile. It was all part of the unspoken and uneasy truce. He had unravelled her work on the Jim Buckley case in Hopetoun and taken what should have been a first homicide scalp away from her. Lara had used all the tricks in the book: planting evidence, manipulating witnesses, burying any contradictions. None of it had fooled Cato bloody Kwong.
    ‘Once forensic’s finished the preliminaries we’ll be able to speculate more freely, sir.’
    ‘Hmmm. And no name yet, that right?’
    ‘Not yet.’ It was a lie. She’d recognised him the moment she peered over the toilet partition. She still hadn’t worked out the possible implications of her previous dealings with him: until she did she was keeping quiet.
    Hutchens turned to Cato. ‘What do you reckon, then?’
    Cato acknowledged Lara’s presence with a wink. ‘All very interesting, boss.’
    Lara studied his expression but it was inscrutable.
    There was nothing so tawdry as a nightclub in daytime, mused Cato as he drove away from the Birdcage. An inquisitive throng of onlookers had gathered at the crime-tape perimeter: licking ice-creams, sipping cold drinks and coffees, taking pictures with their phones. Murder: the latest Freo tourist attraction. Supposedly it was Cato’s job to collate witness statements. God knows how many people passed through the place last night. He’d get on with tracking them down as soon as he’d run this little errand for DI Hutchens.
    Shellie Petkovic lived in a Homeswest state housing duplex just off Lefroy Road, near the high school. There were stained mattresses and rusty half-bikes out on the verge but council collection day was still a few months off. Hers was a corner unit, distinguished from the others by a homemade mosaic number on the wall, wind chimes, and a crystal rainbow-catcher dangling in the window. Music, of sorts, doofed from the neighbour’s place. Cato rapped on the security flywire. The air was still and there was no shade in the midday street. Shellie unsnicked the latch and, without a word, disappeared to the shadows inside. Cato followed. The house smelled of cat: there was a plump tabby curled up on an armchair. Shellie had retreated to the couch. Despite the heat she was beneath a doona, watching him.
    ‘I’m meant to ask how you’re going but I can see for myself,’ said Cato.
    ‘Yeah? What do you see?’
    ‘Somebody who’s had a gutful.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘Thanks. Can you see yourself out?’
    He was dismissed but her gaze never left him. Shellie’s eyes were a striking blue-grey; in this context they were intense and unforgiving. Her dark hair was spiked, matted and craving attention. On the mantelpiece was a framed photo of a younger smiling Shellieand a little girl wearing a pink tutu and fairy wings.
    ‘My boss needs to know where you sit with all this ... business.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Are you going to take it any further?’
    ‘Tell your boss it’s none of his bloody business.’
    ‘Okay.’ Cato wrote his mobile