Dirty Weekend (36 page)

‘I’ve heard from old crims,’ I said, standing at the lectern, the bright overhead spotlights making my eyes ache, ‘that after the first killing, the rest are easy.’

Hundreds of people had attended this special presentation at the Weston Federal Police complex. Wendy Chen had taken them through the process of forensic sculpture and behind me, taking up the full dimensions of the screen, 17/2000’s face shimmered.

I’d almost finished my address in the AFP theatre and on the lectern in front of me, with my rough notes, was a letter that Sofia had found in Albert Vaughan’s personal items and handed to me just before I was due to start my talk. I’d stared at it a few minutes, not understanding the significance of the re-addressed envelope, until the full implication of it hit me like an electric shock and the last part of the puzzle fell into place. Of course, I thought to myself, and the mystery of Albert Vaughan’s connection to the granite particles became clear.

Outside, a roll of thunder sounded—still distant but heralding the slow-moving weather system that we were all praying would bring desperately needed rain—and I waited until it had stopped before continuing.

‘No one doubted that Lily had run away and when the postcards arrived, the in-laws in Australia wiped their hands of her. Her mother-in-law raised the baby she’d left. With some intermittent support from her son.’

If I hadn’t been so angry about Lily Meadowes abandoning her son, an anger that came from my own old childhood suffering, I never would have contacted Interpol to track her. The fact that there were no records of her ever arriving in the UK might never have surfaced. The muscles in my face were aching and the throbbing in my head, legacy of the man about whom I’d been speaking, was beginning to interfere with my thought processes.

‘Postcards are often scrawled in a hurry,’ I continued, ‘and no one suspected anything. A flighty young thing had found family responsibilities too much for her and had run away back to the old country. It’s not an uncommon event.’

I’d referred to Earl Richardson as ‘the alleged killer’ all through my address. I didn’t want a contempt charge on top of all the others I could be facing.

‘When I first looked into the cold case of 17/2000, it was because I’d remembered the rare native pollen trace found in the hair of what were only skeletal remains. I had no idea that this case would eventually fuse itself with that of a present-day murder investigation.’

I paused and took a sip of water from the glass on the lectern.

‘I believe that the alleged offender, remembering how easily and simply he’d removed his first wife,’ I continued, ‘lured the second victim, his next wife, to his mother’s property by telling her that she could pick up some jewellery that she desired very much. I don’t know exactly what happened next, but I imagine he attacked her. Perhaps he knocked her down, perhaps he just lifted her and threw her over. She fell to her death in the same place as his first wife had—into a ravine at the end of the garden where there’s almost no ground beyond the retaining wall.’

I suddenly remembered the reason for the blue I’d had with Richardson all those years ago—a crude remark he’d made about a policewoman we both knew who’d been sexually assaulted; ‘asking for it’, according to him.

I looked around the theatre. The audience was riveted but I knew I had to finish up soon and I tried blinking away the pain across my forehead.

‘Just as he’d done in the first case,’ I continued, ‘he drove along the ridge, down the fire trail and into the valley, where he picked up the body and put her in the passenger seat. He must have had a body bag with him to contain any leakages, and a dead body doesn’t bleed. He drove her back to what had once been their mutual home, took his car into the city centre and left it there, got himself back to the marital house, knowing that if he covered up well—this man has had a fair amount of forensic science experience—any DNA traces he left could easily be explained as historical and therefore be eliminated. He would make it look as if his wife had gone dancing and picked up the wrong man. But he had only limited time. He needed to dispose of her and get himself back to Sydney—a drive of some three hours or so—so that he could be suitably shocked and horrified, and of course
innocent
, when the police came knocking on his door with the death message.’

And so that he could ring me shortly afterwards, I thought. And set me right up.

‘Time was running out,’ I continued. ‘He had to work fast. He carried her into the bedroom, unbagged her, laid her out somewhere on a big plastic sheet, cleaned her up, saw the new outfit she’d bought herself and started to dress her up. But when it came to the skirt, he just found it too difficult and time was slipping away.’

I remembered what a struggle it had been for the two of us, Harry and me, with that dead weight, pulling the tight skirt up, zipping it.

‘So he grabbed an easy, slip-on skirt with an elastic band, put that on her, and the new sandals, but, being a man in a hurry, didn’t bother with the matching jewellery she’d bought. In spite of all his care, he must have noticed some blood on the bedspread in his victim’s room so, from among the things he’d brought with him, he replaced it with one of his own. He found her young lover’s boots and wore them. He found a half-smoked joint somewhere in the house and took that with him too. So off she went to the Blackspot Nightclub, still wearing the peridot and pearl earrings. He parked briefly at the rear edge of the nightclub’s parking area, away from the central, lit area, tipped her out and locked her car, wearing gloves all the while.

‘Next, he picked up his own car in the city centre, returned the boots to the house and was heading back to Sydney—and that’s when he had the very bad luck of being seen by someone,’ I referred to the re-addressed envelope. ‘An elderly man, on his way to the pharmacy from out of town because of an asthma attack, pulled up beside another car at a red light—and no doubt was surprised to see someone he knew waiting at the lights beside him. This person turned to the alleged killer and saw him, maybe even waved at him. Until he moved a couple of years ago, this old man Albert Vaughan, used to live in Kincaid Street, Deakin, not far from the house where the alleged killer and his wife also lived. This was appalling bad luck—a terrible fluke. The alleged killer realised the old man, once the murder became known, would definitely remember this chance encounter late at night with his ex-neighbour who was supposed to be in Sydney. He knew he had to silence the old man so he quietly followed him out along the Ginnindera Road to his house and, as he was opening the door, slipped in behind him and killed him. Then he continued on his way to Sydney.’

I changed the image on the screen to the highly magnified grey granite particles.

‘What the alleged killer didn’t know was that traces of
this
material,’ I pointed the red laser dot ‘—from the retaining wall from where both female victims fell had transferred themselves from his car boot, in which in the past he’d carried retaining wall blocks—onto the wheelbrace which he’d pinched from his mother’s car to use as a weapon, and from there into the wounds on the head of his third victim.’

I wanted to talk about the pollen evidence, but Sofia could do that on another occasion. It was, after all, her discovery that had helped bring these two cases together. Also, my headache was causing me to blink and the pain now extended right around my head. I would have to leave early if I wanted to make it to my planned meeting and get home by a reasonable hour.

‘Thank you,’ I said to the audience, explaining why I wouldn’t be available after the closing speech to take further questions. I said goodnight to Wendy Chen and then walked outside into a cold Canberra night, the sky black and low above me, leaving the audience to crowd around Wendy and other speakers.

Lightning zig-zagged through the sky and accompanying thunder cracked almost overhead as I drove to the youth hostel where Jason Richardson was staying, picking up some fried chicken and some heavy-duty painkillers on the way.

We met in the cramped lounge room of the hostel with its odd furniture, piles of magazines, empty takeaway food cartons and a television that no one seemed to be watching, flashing away in a corner near the drinks dispenser.

Jason looked up from the table he was sitting at as I came into the room. A few of the others glanced my way before returning to their conversations or eating. I sat down opposite him and passed over the container of fried chicken. I knew from my experience with Greg that you could never go wrong offering food to young males. He took it silently and stood up.

‘Let’s go upstairs where it’s quiet,’ he said. ‘My roommate won’t be in till really late.’

We went upstairs to a room where two double bunks took up most of the area and sat down on opposite lower bunks. Jason opened the container of chicken. He pounced on it without offering me any while I asked him about the health of his grandmother who was recovering in hospital. She’d be home in a day or two, he said. An awkward silence followed.

‘I’m not going to stay long, Jason,’ I said. ‘But I wanted to let you know I’m sorry about what I had to do and say the other night when your father was arrested.’

He looked away, sorrowfully embarrassed at the memory.

‘And what your father said isn’t true. You’re not hopeless and you’re not a loser. You’ve had a very difficult life.’

He reminded me of my own youth, the same lostness, aimlessness, and so I told him about my little sister Rosie and what had happened to her and how that had driven me until I found out the truth and how I was now in love with a woman whose family, too, was filled with suffering and homicide like his was, but that this hadn’t prevented her from eventually having a good life. I even told him I’d stuffed up my relationship with this woman because of my own personal failings. ‘What I’m trying to say in my not very expert way is, you’re not alone. I used to think I was the only person in the world who had problems like mine but, as I’ve gathered more experience, I’ve discovered this isn’t so.’

I was aware of his interest by the way he’d stopped chewing so I pulled out my card. ‘The question—for both of us—is this: are we willing to do something to make our future different from the past?’

You
have problems? said his disbelieving look as he took my card.

‘If you want to do something to change the way you live, come and see me and I’ll introduce you to a few people who might be helpful. That is, if you haven’t given up on adults completely.’

His downcast eyes flashed upwards to meet mine and I held them. I saw the pain in him caused by the hollow in his heart that should have been filled with a father’s love and I felt that same absence in my own heart.

‘I don’t know what to do, where to go. I feel I’ve lost everyone,’ he said, his eyes filling. He bowed his head, silent sobs shaking his narrow frame. Hesitantly, I put my hand on his shoulder, like Charlie sometimes did to me. Now wasn’t the time for soothing words. Sometimes grief had to be honoured and allowed to do its job.

There were tears in my eyes, too.

As I left the hostel, the rain started. Moderate at first, then heavy; the small group of addicts who sometimes hung around this corner waiting for the dealer were already sodden. That reminded me to tell Jacinta about Cheryl Tobin. Jass might talk to the girl when she surfaced, addict to addict, and show her that there
is
life after the living death of addiction—if a person has just a little willingness and the courage to change.

The question for me was the same as the one I’d put to Jason Richardson.

And I
was
willing to make the changes. But I would need a patient and gentle teacher and, at my age, I had no reason to expect this.

In the car, the rain was so heavy that I had to put the wipers on the highest speed and sit in second gear a lot of the time for the drive to Weston.

I dropped into my office and made a photocopy of my leave application, tucking it in an envelope before driving back to the cottage.

Some mail was sticking out of the painted four-gallon drum on the fence and I grabbed it as I drove through the gate and up the driveway. I smiled when I saw Jacinta’s car parked near the house.

I tiptoed through the sleeping household, threw the damp mail on the coffee table near the fire, saw Greg’s backpack tossed on the lounge next to the cuddling lemurs, took a couple of painkillers and collapsed onto a lounge chair, the sound of the heavy rain soothing. Half of my little family was here.

The sodden sound of heavy dripping made me swear and I looked up to see water coming through the ceiling onto a darker patch on the old carpet. I dug out a bucket, thinking that as soon as the rain stopped, I was going to have to get on the roof and fix that leak.

Next morning, my head had improved considerably and the rain was still falling. I looked in on the spare bedroom to see Jacinta snuggled down and gently closed the door again. Greg’s snores from the little back room across the hall were a comforting sound.

Leaving the youngsters to sleep in, I ate my toast and scrambled eggs in the lounge room, in front of the fire which I’d rebuilt from the coals. The water feature in the middle of the room splashed away—the bucket was almost full. I emptied it, then cleared the table near the window and sat to compose my letter to Iona. Short and to the point, I wrote that I’d seen enough of—
lived
in—the terrible silence that permeates the lives of unhappy families to know that it was essential that I learn how to spend time with her as she wanted, my son and daughter as well. I’d come to see that my obligations were to her and my kids, not to the dead, the job or anything else. To this end, I’d taken a month’s leave from work to take stock of my situation and to start changing—if she would give me one more chance. I signed it with love and enclosed the photocopy of my leave application. Then I added a P.S. asking her to ring me if there was still a chance.

I stood up and went to the window, staring out at the blessed rain spreading the falling petals of the last roses, gurgling into the tanks, beating on the roof, steady and constant. Brown rivulets ran down either side of the cambered gravel driveway onto the road; the paddocks opposite were already misted with sharper gold, as if an artist had touched a wet yellow ground with one camel hair of blue from his brush and hinted green; the hills beyond them seemed already softer, more fully rounded, swelling under the flow of rain.