He had been relieved and genuinely pleased to find the fax waiting for him on his desk from ballistics, stating the bullet that killed Kusak could not be traced to any of the confiscated guns in the armoury. Nevertheless, his suspicions of Hayward niggled no less than his aching tooth; at the very least he thought, she was a major incident waiting to happen.

Monty stretched, unable to get comfortable; his toothache seemed to have travelled down his neck and into his arm. It dawned on him then that his anger stemmed largely from the fact that Stevie had failed to tell him, failed to trust him. If it turned out Hayward was involved in Kusak’s death in any way, Stevie would go down for it too. She’d be accused of ignoring the possible breakdown of a team member, which subsequently led to that team member committing murder; her career would be in ruins. Why the hell hadn’t she told him at the start, got his advice when she first had trouble with Hayward in the park? Why hadn’t she let him help her with this? Why sacrifice her career for a loose cannon like Natasha when she must know he’d do anything for her?

He looked up at the phone, willing it to ring. Stevie would doubtless be talking to Tash today, but he had no idea when. The pain in his arm worsened. It seemed to be spreading to his chest. He took some deep breaths and, deciding it was better to err on the side of caution, phoned his doctor. The receptionist said there was a space in two hours time, sooner if it was urgent. Monty said it wasn’t.

He put the phone down, his gaze dropping to some unconscious doodling on his notebook—Natasha’s name woven into a maze of Celtic knots. To his dismay he discovered that her name had pressed its way through all the pages that lay beneath.

That afternoon, after a piece of news that had initially dumbfounded him, Monty called an impromptu progress meeting with the senior detectives involved in the Zhang Li case. The three men grabbed swivel chairs and clustered around Monty’s desk, sipping coffee from foam cups and balancing notebooks on knees.

‘Firstly,’ Monty said to his gathered team, ‘the report from ballistics on the bullet that killed Miro Kusak was waiting on my desk when I got in. Apparently it’s an exact match for the bullet that killed our Asian loan shark, Zhang Li.’

Wayne put his cup on Monty’s desk and leaned back in his chair. ‘Well, well, that is interesting.’

Angus beamed. ‘I thought two murders by an automatic pistol within weeks of each other was a bit of stretch for Perth—I mean this is hardly downtown LA. Looks like there is a God.’

‘And it seems he wants to help us out for a change,’ Barry said. ‘Though he could have waited till after the weekend.’

‘Don’t get too excited, fellas,’ Wayne cautioned. ‘The bullets might have been fired by the same gun, but we don’t have the gun. What about the impounded guns, Mont? With the state of the armoury since the amnesty, anyone could have lifted one and then put it back.’

So Wayne had been thinking along these lines too. The thought left Monty feeling slightly vindicated.

‘One of us you mean?’ Barry sounded incredulous.

Monty nodded. ‘Yes, we couldn’t rule out the possibility that we might have a cop playing vigilante—but rest easy, there’s no match.’

Wayne shrugged. ‘Without the gun then, we’re not really any the wiser.’

‘Only now, Wayne, we have a link, bizarre as it might seem, between the death of a loan shark and the death of a paedophile,’ Monty said.

And I have no reason to be suspicious of Hayward, he thought. So why then am I still plagued by these doubts, this deep sense of foreboding, as if she is still some kind of a threat? He thought back to what the doctor had told him that morning; that he must attempt to cut down on his workload and reduce the stress in his life. He had to drop the subject. He slashed a pen through his doodles and tore the page from the book.

He attempted to pull himself together and pointed at Wayne. ‘You and Angus said you thought the Vietnamese girl at the herbalist’s was hiding something. Have you followed that up yet?’ Monty asked Wayne.

Wayne shook his head. ‘The dead rock spider put paid to that yesterday, boss. I’ll pay her another visit this afternoon.’

Barry smirked at Wayne from where he sat spinning in his chair. ‘He’s sweet on her,’ he said with one of his infuriating Alfred-E-Newman grins, ‘that’s why he hasn’t done it yet.’

Monty listened to the exchange with the distance of a weary headmaster.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, I’ve been flat out,’ Wayne said, a faint blush circling his collar line.

‘Turned into quite a softy in your old age ... You should have seen him, Mont, carrying on and laughing with this babe, making bad jokes about herbal aphrodisiacs...’

Monty had had enough. He slammed his hand down on his desk, forgetting it was the one he’s damaged on Henry Grebe, and let out a blue streak of obscenities. When he’d recovered he pointed to the door and snapped, ‘Shut it or just swivel out of here, Barry.’

Barry touched his chest, ‘Who, me?’ but he still didn’t make a move.

Angus climbed to his feet. ‘I need to go, I have some leads to follow on the kid running around with Zhang Li.’ He flicked his hand at Wayne. ‘Keep your phone on, I think I might have you a name soon.’

When Angus had gone, Monty said to Barry, ‘I’m sure you can find something to do. Go over the statements from the Kusak neighbours and chase SOCO up over the evidence reports we’re still waiting on. Oh yeah, and check Mrs K’s bank statements too.’

Barry nodded complacently, but the only move he made was to take another bite of his doughnut. Monty gave him a heated look, and even that didn’t penetrate the kid’s thick skin until he registered the flexing of the fingers on Monty’s left hand.

Barry wiped sugary fingers down the legs of his pants. ‘Okay, keep your hair on, I’m going.’

When he’d gone, Monty leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a few seconds.

‘He can’t bear to miss out on anything, the nosy little prick.’ Wayne looked with concern at Monty. ‘You okay?’

‘No.’ Monty wondered if Wayne had heard about his altercation with Henry Grebe. It was unlikely that Grebe would have reported it, given that he had behaved so atrociously. The fear that had been gripping Monty didn’t have anything to do with the possible fall-out, it was more about his own lack of control, a control that seemed at the moment to be increasingly shaky.

Monty opened his eyes at the sound of the loosening of a screw cap, cocked an eyebrow at Wayne’s hip flask, but said nothing. Wayne took two glasses from the tray, poured a generous measure of scotch into each, and added water from the jug on Monty’s desk.

They clinked. Wayne took a sip and said, ‘You going to tell me about this morning’s appointment?’ Wayne was the only person Monty had told about his chest pain and subsequent visit to the doctor.

Monty leaned back in his chair and scowled, keeping his eyes focused on something invisible above the office door. ‘Bloody scare-mongering doctors.’

‘I take it it didn’t go so well?’

Monty swirled the whisky in his glass and put it down without a taste. ‘Did a few simple tests in the surgery, doesn’t think it’s too critical, but wants to book me in for an angiogram ASAP. I said I couldn’t possibly take time out at the moment, not with my current caseload, at which he got rather shitty with me. My caseload, huh!’ he threw his hands into the air. ‘The murder of two low lifes who, truth be known, I really couldn’t give a flying fuck about.’ He patted his chest. ‘High blood pressure and some problems with the old heart too, thinks it’s stress related. He’s given me some pills and a spray pump thing to tide me over.’

‘Does Stevie know?’

The crowd roared from the WACA and a flock of parrots jetted passed the office window as if fired from a cannon. ‘Bloody cricket,’ Monty grumbled.