Getting Warmer Read Free Page A

number on a card and left it on the table. ‘Anything I can do, just call.’
    ‘How’s your head?’
    He fingered the lump and smiled. ‘A mere flesh wound.’
    ‘Pity you got in the way. I could have finished the bastard off.’
    ‘How are you going with the witnesses?’
    Lara Sumich had perched herself on the corner of Cato’s desk. She sipped a glass of water and held the coolness of it against her neck where her shirt buttons began. Over the course of the day her brown ponytail had wilted in the heat.
    Cato studied his computer screen. ‘The cleaner and bar staff are in hand. The doormen are being chased up. The punters? Upwards of two hundred of them. Thursday night is Retro ’80s night apparently.’
    ‘The 80s? What music did they have then?’
    ‘Men at Work, Spandau Ballet, Madonna, that kind of stuff.’
    ‘I was probably a bit busy with my Barbie dolls.’
    He’d walked into that one. There was, at most, a ten-year age gap between them but Cato felt like a Neolithic relic.
    ‘A lot of the punters are students from Notre Dame, Murdoch, plus some backpackers and Thursday-night regulars. So between the club membership list, the unis, the hostels and the CCTV, we should be able to round most of them up, eventually.’ He sat back in his chair and folded his arms. ‘You’ve got the CCTV, is that right?’
    ‘Yeah, I’m just checking something out, I’ll chuck it your way later this arvo.’
    ‘Thanks.’ Cato returned his attention to the computer. ‘Lucky you were on the scene so quickly.’
    ‘There’d been an assault complaint. I was following it up.’
    ‘Any connection?’
    ‘No, not as far as I can tell.’
    ‘Any ID on the victim?’
    ‘Not yet, no.’ Lara finished her water and stood. Cato caught a waft of that expensive scent she used. ‘Squad meeting at five,’ she said. ‘See you there.’
    ‘His name is Santo Rosetti. Thirty-two. Current address: his parents’ place in Spearwood. Previous for drug possession and dealing: mull, eckies, methamphetamines, special K, the usual.’ Lara surveyed the crowded room; all attention was on her. DI Hutchens had made it clear he was in charge but that she could run the day-to-day. She updated them on developments. Santo’s bloody wallet had been fished out of a builder’s skip that afternoon. Any cash was gone but various cards remained, Medicare and driver’s licence included. Now there was official identification through proper investigative channels, it made life a bit easier for Lara. She didn’t need to own up to knowing him. ‘Known associates, linked in with the Apaches but also flirts with the Tran brothers out of Baldivis.’
    ‘Sounds like a dickhead sandwich,’ muttered Hutchens.
    ‘Certainly living dangerously,’ Lara said. ‘I assume Gangs and Major Crime will want to be in on this one, boss?’
    ‘Over my dead body,’ said Hutchens. There was a murmur of approval from the assembled throng. They wanted first crack at it. Hutchens gifted them a smile, the benign dictator. ‘I’ll work out the parameters with Major Crime. Cato, you go liaison on Gangs. They know you. Keep them sweet, keep them ignorant, keep them away.’
    Lara kept her murderous thoughts to herself. Kwong was the last person she needed in that position. Hutchens looked at her like he could read her mind.
    ‘Are we any closer to working out how they got to him behind closed doors?’
    ‘Preliminary blood spatter suggests he most likely died in the cubicle.’ Lara glanced over at Duncan Goldflam and he nodded assent. ‘So the killer must have been in there with him, invited or uninvited, and then left over the top of the partition.’
    ‘Why the pantomime? Why not just do him and leave the easy way?’
    ‘Deliberately trying to confuse us, sir, bit of a distraction?’
    ‘Good girl.’
    Lara gave a neutral nod instead of sticking her fingers down her throat. ‘So, we’re focusing on witnesses and the CCTV and we’ll be looking for any