‘Good boy.’
‘White shoes told us this guy was a soft touch, and filthy rich. Don’t know why he was borrowing money if he was so rich, but that wasn’t my problem. Anyway, he wasn’t paying back, and it turned out he wasn’t soft at all.’ He stopped for a moment.
‘Go on, Sam,’ Wayne said.
‘So we go to meet this guy in the city. Li poked him in the ribs with his knife, told him to find his car so they could go for a little drive. Li make him drive us to the river in Maylands, near all the bamboo. He told the guy he was going to cut his finger off for not paying his debts, and the guy begged him not to. He was crying and carrying on, said he wouldn’t be able to work without a finger, said it was all a mistake, he’d get the money blah blah blah. Li got him on the ground. He wanted me to help hold him down, but I seen him do it before and it was gross, blood everywhere.’ He shot Mrs Jenkins a cheeky look. ‘Li yelled at me, said I was fired. Then the doc reached into his...’
Wayne straightened in his seat, ‘Wait a minute, kid, you said the doc—was this rich guy a doctor?’
‘Umm yeah, guess he was, guess I only just remembered,’ Sam rubbed his nose and glanced away.
Sure you did kid, and you’ve known both of the men’s names all along, but under all the cocky bluster, you’re too terrified to admit it. ‘Go on,’ Wayne prompted.
‘Yeah, he reached into his coat with his other hand, pulled out a gun and shot Li in the head—can you believe that? I mean just about no one in Perth carries handguns. If the bullet hadn’t killed him, poor old Li would’ve died of shock anyway I reckon.
‘I ran away then, and he shouted at me, said I was going to get it too, said he knew where to find me. I nearly pissed myself, man.’
‘Did you see what the doc did with the gun?’
‘No, I guess he chucked it in the river.’
He can’t have chucked it in the river, Wayne thought, because it was used just over two weeks later to kill Miro Kusak.
The kid’s hand shook on the plastic cup of water and he almost missed his lips. He seemed to have suffered quite a considerable drop in confidence since he’d made the mistake of mentioning the ‘doc’.
‘Sam, would you mind having a look at some photos with me?’ It wouldn’t be too hard to find a photo of the once philanthropic plastic surgeon. The pathologist’s report on the body from the river had mentioned how the face had been removed with surgical skill. It had to be him.
‘If you’ll just come with me, Sam...’
Sam shook his head.
‘I think he’s had enough, Detective Pickering,’ Mrs Jenkins said. ‘The boy’s had a horrific experience. My job is to ensure that this interview is conducted in a proper and non-exploitive way and that’s what I intend to do.’
Wayne blew out a breath but had to agree. The strain was beginning to show on Sam’s pale face, despite the earlier bravado. He turned off the tape. ‘Okay, I suppose we have enough to get started.’ He’d be making no arrests tonight, he thought, feeling tired and defeated, and yet he was so close. He could only hope that Stevie was having more luck at the Chateau.
He moulded his mouth into a smile and patted Sammy on the back. ‘How’s the hostel going?’
‘It sucks and the food tastes like shit,’ Sam said.
‘But don’t forget, if you continue with the program, they’ll see if they can find you an apprenticeship,’ the social worker said.
‘Whoopee doo,’ Sammy said. ‘They keep crapping on to me about taking one day at a time—that’s what I’m gonna do.’
And that, Wayne decided, was what he was going to have to do too. ‘I want you to go back to the hostel now, Sam, have a good sleep and try to remember some more about that night, like the men’s names, or anything else about them.’ He turned to the social worker, ‘I’ll need to see him again in the morning. I’ll dig up some photos that might jog his memory.’
32
The Chateau itself was much smaller than it appeared from the outside. Upstairs there were two bedrooms and a bathroom, which Tash had already searched. A galley kitchen, another bathroom and the main bedroom were located downstairs. The bed here was a four-poster, carved with elaborate geometric designs. A curtain covered a small in built wardrobe where Stevie found some men’s casual clothes and a pair of workboots. A small bookcase filled with yellowing paperbacks leaned against one of the walls.
In the bathroom Stevie found compressed cocaine hidden amongst echinacea tablets. She returned to the great hall and placed the bottle on the table before Stoppard.
He shrugged, ‘I get it from Mexico, for personal use. I wouldn’t be stupid enough to sell it.’
Stevie glanced at Tash. It seemed she had got no further with their suspect. If anything he appeared more relaxed. In some strange way his casual acknowledgement to the cocaine possession, the way he was trying to deflect from the major issue, was more disturbing to Stevie than his denial of seeing Emma.
‘I’m going outside to check out the tower,’ she told Tash.
The spiral stairs on the outside of the tower had no railing and she wound her way up carefully. On her way she examined three floors of circular rooms, all with dimly lit grottoes displaying a variety of exotic statues and carvings; creatures with strange hooked beaks and wings that were never meant to fly.
The topmost level was reached by a ladder from a trapdoor in the ceiling. Here she found a small office with shelves of files. She picked a CD from a neat pile. Unlike those in the boxes downstairs, this was clearly labelled: ‘Accounts 2005–2006.’
A sleeping PC sat on a small desk. She snapped on latex gloves from her pocket and touched a key, finding herself on the Katy Enigma site. She knew what this meant; either Stoppard had been lurking on the site, or Emma had posted her story from here.
Stevie racked through her shaky knowledge of computers and websites. As she thought she gazed through a porthole window at the inky water below. A floodlit fountain came to life in the middle of the lake. Must be controlled by a timer, she thought idly. The glowing orbs of protea blossoms caught her eye on the far side as the lake burst with prisms of colour.
But she wasn’t here to admire the view. Her eyes slipped back to the computer screen, noticing the various commands and codes in its margin. She realised then that she was in the administration panel, a page only accessible to the site owner.
Which meant Emma had posted her story from here. They had him.
Having not yet explored the entrance to the Chateau, Stevie opted to return through the front door. Evidence of a struggle greeted her as soon as she stepped into the entrance. Clearly, someone had attempted a clean up, but shards of broken pottery and lumps of soil and streaks of mud were still visible. Two sets of footprints, one large, one small, tracked down the passageway. Treading carefully, Stevie followed them, a grim smile upon her face. No way could that slimy bastard wriggle out of it now, no matter how much money he had.
Stoppard’s scream made her pull up short. She hugged the walls as she made her way down the passageway towards the light from the great hall. Gingerly, she peered around the doorframe.
She saw Stoppard bound to a chair with a curtain tie, struggling to break free. Tash stood over him brandishing one of the scalpels.
‘You can’t do this to me, you wouldn’t dare!’ Stoppard yelled.
‘I’ve done it before, mate and got away with it too,’ Tash said. ‘The last guy, one of your little crawling pals, got a bullet to the head. He was lucky, a helluva lot luckier than you’re gonna be.’