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Buckley, letting Cato knowwho was boss. Buckley looked over at Cato. Detective Kwong took his sunnies out of his Stock Squad shirt pocket.
    ‘Let’s go to the beach.’
    The beach at Hopey didn’t offer any major new insights but Cato enjoyed the squeak of the brilliant white grains under his Stock Squad blundies and the sparkling clarity of the water rolling and crashing onto the shore. For him it was as much about getting a feel for the place, the lie of the land and all that. First impressions? Small. The tour of the town had taken about five minutes; there seemed to be about half a dozen streets either side of the main drag. East of Veal Street were mainly older holiday shacks; to the west, the newly built Legoland – as Tess called it – courtesy of the mine. At the south end of Veal Street, the town centre – three shops, a couple of cafes, a park, a pub, the beach, the ocean. At the north end, Veal Street became the Hopetoun–Ravensthorpe Road. Hopetoun was the original one-horse town and, at first glance, a beautiful and peaceful place to die.
    Cato had asked Tess and Greg to find out tide and weather conditions for the last few days to see if that would tell them where the body might have entered the water. He also suggested following up any missing person reports from the last few weeks or so. Tess had given him a ‘No shit, Sherlock?’ look. Obviously, in both instances, she was already on the case. Cato should have expected the hostility from her but it still bothered him. It was at least twelve or thirteen years ago but it was clearly a sore that had never properly healed. And why should it? Cato was fairly fresh out of the academy and four years her junior. They had been partnered up, working nights out of Midland, Perth’s bandit country, in the souped-up unmarked Commodore. Cato Kwong – Prince of the Mean Streets. High-speed chases through the suburbs, domestics, prowlers, break-ins. Routine stuff but still usually more a thrill than not in those days. And the adrenaline had fed the spark between them. It all seemed natural and inevitable and it was good, great at times. All over each other like a rash. Until he walked out on her.
    It was nearly dark as they drove into Ravensthorpe. Just a few pale strips of sky lay in the west, sandwiched between the silhouette of distant hills and a blanket of ink-black clouds. Ravy, as it was known locally, was bigger than Hopey, only just. The main street was dark and deserted except around the two-storey red brick Ravensthorpe Hotel where an array of utes and four-wheel drives were angleparked in anticipation of the Wednesday night pool competition. Some of the utes bore mine company logos. Cato had seen the lights of the mine off in the eastern distance as they passed the airport turn-off halfway between the two towns. You couldn’t miss it, a patch of brilliant daylight in the surrounding dim dusk. They’d had to pull into the side of the road while an ambulance, with lights flashing, sped past.
    Cato pulled into the hospital car park and killed the radio. According to the eight o’clock news the Australian stock market just had its worst day in twenty years. Jim Buckley snorted and muttered something to the effect of ‘Boo-fucking-hoo’. It was deadly quiet, not many lights on. Like many country hospitals, Ravensthorpe was little more than a glorified nursing post, kept open by the skin of its teeth, the marginality of the electorate or, as in this case, the persuasive power of the mining company. The ambulance, having deposited its patient, was swinging back out onto the road; the driver and Cato exchanged a relaxed hand-flick wave.
    Cato and Buckley approached the front entrance expecting the automatic doors to slide open. They didn’t. Except for emergencies, the hospital operating hours had recently been cut back to an eight to eight shift. ‘Staff Shortages’ said the handwritten notice blutacked to the door. It was 8.05. Cato rang the bell and