The clanging of a locker door and the sound of hurried footsteps ahead drew his attention and he saw Charlie’s sticklike figure heading towards the exit stairs. He ran to follow and soon found himself on the street again. With her head hunched and her stride brisk, Champagne Charlie strode under the green tubular footbridge that stretched like a caterpillar above the road, up the pavement and towards the quieter end of the street.

Several minutes later Monty found himself in the same stretch of road where Linda Royce had been abducted. The absence of pedestrians was eerie compared to the hustle and bustle of the club district only a few streets away.

Ahead, a vacant plot of rain-washed weeds marked by a developer’s sign stretched alongside the railway track. Here Charlie stopped and leaned against a light pole, breathless after the exertion of her walk.

Monty caught up with her as she was adjusting the plastic strap of her high red sandal.

‘Hey, I still need you to talk to you about my girl Lorna.’

She opened her mouth, no doubt to tell him to do something physically impossible to himself, but her sentence petered out before it started. Her eyes widened as she tried to focus on something over Monty’s shoulder. He turned to see two men walking up the pavement towards them. In the flicker of the faulty streetlight their movements looked jerky, like computer graphics. He had to squint to make them out. Both were wearing long coats, one man was tall and beefy, the other smaller and wiry.

Champagne Charlie echoed his own thoughts when she said, ‘Oh fuck!’

He glanced back to see her toeing off her shoes. In an instant she’d stepped out of them and was thumping away bare-footed up the pavement.

One of the men has to be her pimp, Monty thought. As he was the one who’d got her into trouble, the very least he could do was prevent them taking off after her and giving her a beating.

He turned to face them and braced his legs like a sailor on a heaving deck, making it obvious that he was not going to let them pass. But when they stopped in a shadow about two metres away from him, it became clear that they had no intention of chasing after Champagne Charlie.

‘Well, well, well, what have we here?’

At the sound of the voice Monty didn’t need to see the face to identify the speaker. It was Keyes, one of the cops who’d trashed his flat.

The instant the larger man stepped under the light, a hazy memory that had been stuck somewhere in the dark recesses of Monty’s subconscious flashed into awareness. Now he remembered where he’d seen their names before—in the case notes he’d been reading the night he was drugged. In his mind’s eye he saw his notebook, and in his own handwriting the names of the Vice cops who’d worked the KP murders: William Keyes and Duncan Thrummel.

Now he knew exactly what they were doing here.

Shit.

Thrummel moved to stand next to his older colleague, his gait rigid, his arm pinned to his side.

Keyes said, ‘We’ve got to bring you in, McGuire. You’ve been interrogating witnesses while on suspension. You have the right to remain silent...’

‘Blah blah blah,’ Thrummel finished, taking a step forward.

Monty saw Keyes take the handcuffs from his coat pocket. He gestured to Thrummel’s stiff right arm. ‘Since when has making an arrest involved a baseball bat?’

‘Shut it, McGuire. Put out your hands,’ Keyes told him.

Monty made to put out his hands, but before the cuffs could be snapped, he jerked his knee into the soft flesh of the older man’s groin.

He ran.

He hadn’t been aware of the street’s gradient until his calves started to burn and his lungs laboured for air. No time for a backward glance, he could hear the thud of feet chasing after him. He sensed it was the younger man, Thrummel, matching every stride of his and more. The clatter of wood on concrete indicated the baseball bat had been dropped. Less encumbered, the distance between them narrowed until Monty could hear his pursuer’s breath.

Ahead he saw the white railings of a new footbridge across the railway track. It connected Wellington Street to a series of building sites that were slowly changing into a complex of classy boutiques, restaurants and arcades. If he couldn’t shake off his pursuers in this maze of construction, there was a good chance he could still lose himself in the Saturday night crowds in the clubbing district on the other side.

Hope of escape brought with it a final rush of adrenaline. With a surge of speed, he pumped a last burst of energy into his aching muscles.

He failed to see the taped-off patch of pavement until he’d tripped over it. With a flurry of flailing limbs, tangled orange tape, witch’s hats and flying trainers, he tumbled through the air over the exposed manhole. The breath escaped from his lungs with a painful whoosh as he landed face first on the pavement. The phone in his pocket crunched against his hip.

But time did not give him the luxury of catching his breath. He was already on his hands and knees when Thrummel’s boot caught him in the side, knocking him onto his back. The wiry younger man was on him in an instant, sitting on his chest and stifling any further attempt to draw air into his starving lungs. He grabbed a hunk of Monty’s hair in his fist and slammed his head into the pavement with a splintering crack that vibrated through to his teeth.

The stars were still dancing in his head when he felt an invisible band around his chest tightening and relaxing, tightening and relaxing. Thrummel was bouncing around on top of him, fumbling under the back flaps of his coat in an attempt to extract the handcuffs from his belt.

‘I’ve got you now, cocksucker,’ Thrummel said through huffing breaths.

Head splitting, starved of oxygen, the best Monty could do was bat out at the hands that attempted to cuff his own. But while his left hand parried, his right hand crept towards his coat pocket and the plastic bag of chilli powder. He brought his hand out with a jerk, letting fly in the direction of the man’s eyes, at the same time closing his own to protect them from the cloud of red powder.

Thrummel toppled off Monty’s chest, yelling as he fell backwards into the manhole. ‘Acid, the fucker’s put acid in my eyes!’

Monty didn’t hang around long enough to hear Keyes’ bellowing reply.

sunday

23

A worrying aspect about the organised serial killer is that he learns from his mistakes and tends to get better each time.

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

Stevie had chosen an East Perth cafe for her meeting with Tye. She’d arrived early and queued for a table with the crowd of casually dressed couples salivating for their traditional Sunday breakfast. Finally she’d been given a table for two by the window.

She watched him manoeuvre his car into the disabled parking bay just outside the cafe. His battered Falcon station wagon had seen better days. Patched with rust, sporting a cracked windscreen and a precariously balanced muffler, the old bomb would have won a yellow sticker if Stevie had still been in uniform.

Not wanting to spend any longer than necessary with him, she’d already ordered their coffees and his sat steaming across the table from her.

He smiled as he slid into his seat. ‘Hiya, babe.’ He’d aged since she’d last seen him. The environment in which he worked was reflected in his face; skin cracked as a clay pan, hair spiked as spinifex, a rugged look that could probably still drive women wild. But not her, she wasn’t even sure if she could meet the challenge of sitting with him at the same table. Her armpits prickled with the sweat of her unease and she hated herself for it.

After a sip of coffee he broke into a beaming smile.