Sucked In (10 page)

The Benalla magistrate heard the case eight months after the event. Under oath, the witnesses confirmed their original statements to the police and answered detailed questions.

According to Charlie's testimony, the purpose of the weekend trip to the lake was to discuss work-related issues at the union's purpose-built country retreat. They travelled there in separate parties, making the three-hour trip from Melbourne in two cars, one driven by Charlie, the other by Quinlan.

Charlie and Merv got to the Shack about eleven-thirty in Charlie's union-issue Falcon. Barry Quinlan and Col Bishop arrived half an hour later in Quinlan's car. Sid Gilpin had been left behind, due to a mix-up about the departure time.

Immediately prior to leaving Melbourne, Merv had been drinking at the John Curtin Hotel. He was ‘somewhat intoxicated' when Charlie picked him up at the Trades Hall. Charlie, who had not been drinking, did the driving. Merv slept for most of the trip. On arrival, they each had a can of beer, then several more when Quinlan and Bishop turned up at midnight. Before retiring for the night at one a.m., Merv took a nightcap of rum and cloves.

‘Yum, yum.' Inky smacked his lips. ‘The working man's all-purpose tonic.'

Cutlett woke the others about seven and proposed that they go out in the Shack's boat and catch some redfin for breakfast. Despite the cold and fog he insisted, claiming the conditions were perfect for fishing. Colin Bishop refused but ‘for harmony's sake', as Charlie's testimony stated, the other two reluctantly agreed. Under Merv's direction, the boat was wheeled from the shed, launched and tied up at the Shack's short jetty. Merv consumed a ‘phlegm cutter' of Bundaberg rum but appeared to be in full control of his faculties.

All three were dressed heavily against the cold and they took along a thermos of coffee laced with rum. Nobody wore life-jackets. Merv drove the boat, a 6.3 metre Catalina with a half-cabin canopy. Visibility on the water was poor, but Merv was familiar with the lake and navigated the boat confidently into an area some two hundred metres from the jetty, then stopped the motor and tied-off to a dead tree projecting from the water. They fished for around fifteen minutes without success before moving to another spot, again tying off to a tree. The fog began to rise and a heavily timbered section of the shoreline was visible, but neither Quinlan nor Charlie had a definite sense of their exact location.

After about twenty minutes, the fish still weren't biting and they had finished the coffee. Prompted by questions from the court officer assisting the Coroner, both Charlie and Quinlan stated that it contained ‘a high proportion' of alcohol. The weather was rapidly becoming threatening and they decided to immediately return to the Shack. As Merv was casting off from the dead tree, a squall front hit. Torrential rain began to fall. As Merv hurried to untie the rope, the boat turned in the wind and he toppled overboard.

He thrashed wildly in the widening gap, the wind pushing the boat beyond his reach. Quinlan and Charlie tried to grab him, but he went under almost immediately. While Quinlan tried to get the boat started and bring it back around, Charlie jumped in and attempted to reach him but he'd disappeared beneath the surface. Charlie duck-dived, trying to find him, but his efforts were futile. The water was pitch black, lashed by the rain and freezing cold.

By the time Quinlan got Charlie back into the boat, he was shivering uncontrollably. They returned immediately to the Shack to get help. When they got there, they found that Colin Bishop had been joined by Sid Gilpin, who had arrived while they were out on the lake.

Gilpin tried to ring for help, but the phone at the Shack was locked—standard procedure when the place wasn't in use—so he drove to the nearest roadhouse and raised the alarm. While this was happening, the other two helped Charlie out of his wet clothes and thawed him out in front of the fire.

A police constable on traffic patrol near Mansfield was directed to attend. On the way, he stopped off at the home of the regional State Emergency Services captain and within forty minutes there were six boats on the lake. They included the Catalina, which Gilpin had taken back out on his return from summoning help. Charlie and Quinlan gave fairly precise directions to the scene of the accident, but the wet and blustery conditions doomed search efforts to failure.

By the time the diving team arrived the next day, the worst was assumed. Efforts to locate the corpse were fruitless. Underwater visibility was zero and the compression ratios at that depth limited dive times to a matter of minutes. According to the officer in charge, there'd have been a better chance of winning Tattslotto than finding a body. Weighed down by clothing, lungs filled with water, it would soon discharge its gases and settle on the bottom, between five and fifteen metres down, depending on the precise location.

Citing alcohol and the absence of life-jackets as contributing factors, the magistrate handed down his interim verdict and consigned the case to the files.

‘Straightforward enough,' summarised Inky. ‘But it doesn't tell us why the cops want to get their hands on the Municipals' old records.'

We cleared the tangle of traffic and I cruised down Brunswick Street, scouting for a parking spot.

‘Maybe this sensation-mongering jackal of the gutter press can shed some light on the subject,' I said, slowing as we neared our destination.

‘Yeah but let's keep it under our hats for the moment,' said Inky. ‘See what Valentine has to say about it first.'

Spotting an opening, I threw a U-turn in the face of an oncoming tram and snaffled a spot directly across the road from the Toilers Retreat.

In the five years since I'd moved from Fitzroy, its landmark strip of pubs, funky cafes, knick-knackeries, record stores, bookshops and kebab boutiques had continued to creep up the hill towards the city. With their usual eye to the revenue potential, Yarra Council had jacked up the parking meter fees and erected time-limit signs of such baffling complexity that a team of Philadelphia lawyers armed with atomic clocks would've been hard put to escape a ticket. I double-checked the sign and fed every coin I possessed into the meter.

The Toilers Retreat was buzzing with a boisterous Friday evening crowd. Young persons on heat, the weekend ahead, anticipation in the air. Over-loud music ratcheted up the drinking rate and pool balls clicked. Vic Valentine wasn't hard to identify. Apart from us, he was the only one in the joint over thirty.

He was tending a beer at a corner table, eye to the door. By way of identifying himself, he raised his chin.

The journalist was a spare, spindly type with a sharp-featured rodent face. His head, almost perfectly spherical, was shaved as clean as a burnished hazelnut. He wore a hairline moustache, a faint, self-deprecating smirk and a black leather motorcycle jacket. He was maybe forty.

‘Fuck me,' muttered Inky. ‘It's Zorro.'

I nodded towards Valentine's glass. He held it up. Beer, almost empty. Same again, thanks. While Inky elbowed his way to the bar, I went over, sat down and introduced myself. Valentine asked after my son and explained how he'd picked up on the Merv Cutlett connection. At the time of the drowning, he was a cadet, working general rounds at the
Herald
. One of the more senior journalists had covered the original search, but the discovery of the remains rang a bell when Valentine picked it up in the daily feed from police media relations.

Inky arrived with two beers and a Guinness, its foamy head as close as he was prepared to come to a glass of milk. ‘
Sláinte
,' he said.

We all took a convivial sip. Then Inky put his glass down, wiped the foam from his lip and leaned across the table towards Valentine. ‘Ground rules,' he rasped. ‘This conversation is strictly off the record. Background only.'

Valentine stared around, innocence itself. ‘Noisy, isn't it? Can hardly hear myself think.'

That settled, we got down to it.

‘What do you want to know?' I said. ‘There's slim pickings in the Municipals for a crime reporter.'

‘Maybe,' said Valentine. ‘But if those bones turn out to be Mervyn Cutlett's, there might be a three-course banquet.'

He paused while Inky and I exchanged wary glances.

‘Go on,' said the Ink.

Valentine took a sip. ‘Two-way street,' he said. ‘I'll show you mine if you show me yours.'

‘Okay,' said Inky. ‘Show.'

‘You first,' said the journalist. ‘What can you tell me about a bloke named Sid Gilpin?'

‘He was one of the union's organisers,' I said.

‘And what exactly did he organise?'

I shrugged. ‘The usual stuff, I assume. Resolved minor workplace disputes. Liaised with the shop stewards. Kept an eye on membership subscriptions. Out and about, on the road, maintaining a presence.'

As I said it, I realised something that didn't quite gel. All the other organisers worked out of their respective state offices. Gilpin reported directly to Merv Cutlett. Whatever his job description, it wasn't on the organisational chart.

‘Mate of yours?'

I made a noise like I'd swallowed a fly. ‘Not my speed. I was mid-twenties. He was a fair bit older. One of the safarisuit squad. University of Life and don't you forget it, pal. He thought I was an over-educated, up-myself nancy boy.'

‘How about him and Cutlett?'

‘Thick as thieves, so to speak,' I said. ‘Matter of fact, he was on the scene the day Merv drowned. The first to go out looking for him.'

Inky shot me a warning glance, reminding me not to get ahead of the game. ‘What's your interest in this Gilpin, Vic?' he said.

‘He rang me. Unsolicited. He said he'd heard of me, asked if I was aware of the recent discovery at Lake Nillahcootie. Flagged the name Cutlett. When I expressed interest, he claimed he had evidence that Cutlett was the victim of foul play.'

He took a long, slow sip, studying our reaction over the rim of his glass.

Inky snorted dismissively. ‘What evidence?'

‘Proof of corruption, he said. But he wouldn't go into specifics, not without being paid. Started talking telephone numbers. I told him it didn't work that way. If he had reason to believe a crime had been committed, he should go to the cops.'

I glanced at Inky. Could this explain the police visit to the Peaheads?

‘And did he?' Inky pondered his Guinness. ‘Go to the cops?'

‘You'd have to ask them,' Valentine shrugged. ‘I was hoping you might be able to shed some light on the subject.' He meant me. ‘Any intimations at the time?'

The bar was getting noisier and more crowded by the minute, all elbows and belt buckles and tribal tattoos. I wondered why Valentine had chosen it.

‘If there were, I never heard them,' I said. ‘Which isn't to say there might not have been some pub talk. It was the seventies. Conspiracy theories were thick on the ground.'

Valentine took a tin of baby cigars out of his motorbike jacket, unwrapped one and tapped the end idly on the lid. ‘And the Municipals were clean, you reckon?'

‘As the driven?' I said. ‘Maybe not, but the opportunities for graft were minor league. As for foul play, the idea's got whiskers all over it. The cops were there within minutes. There was a full-on search of the scene. Anything suss went down, somebody would've noticed something. And Gilpin testified at the inquest. He uttered not a peep about anything untoward.'

‘Perhaps he found out later.'

‘Perhaps he's pulling your chain.'

‘Why would he bother?'

‘Buggered if I know. He got the bum's rush from the union soon after Cutlett's demise. Maybe he's been pining for revenge. Maybe he's just trying to hustle up a dollar.'

‘Fishing in troubled waters?' said Valentine. ‘Stirring up the mud?'

Inky grunted. ‘Mud's got a tendency to stick. What's this Gilpin do now? Who does he work for?'

‘He's a dealer.'

‘Drugs?' I was genuinely surprised. Sid had chancer written all over him, but drugs were something else entirely. ‘Junk.' Valentine smirked. ‘Rubbish.'

He waved a demonstrative cigarillo at the Toilers Retreat's tone-setting collection of blue-collar nostalgia. Bushells Tea and Castrol Oil signs adorned the walls. An old Bundy clock stood on the bar. Toolbox assortments embellished the bottle shelves.

‘He did quite well for himself in the eighties, I hear. He had a big old barn of a place up Upwey way. A former foundry or superseded smithy or some such. Stuffed it full of brass doorknobs, cast-iron lacework, Golden Fleece petrol bowser lights, all the usual crap. Called it a flea market and made a killing in Australiana.'

Sid would've been ideally placed to go into the junk business, I thought. The Municipals' members included garbage collectors and rubbish tip attendants. The Outcasts of Foolgarah. Gleaners and fossickers with their treasure troves of the cast-off and chucked-away. A man with Sid's connections could really clean up. Buying the stuff at fifty dollars a trailer-load, recycling it into instant authenticity and selling it for whatever the market would bear. Turning old tin into pure gold.

‘About ten years ago, the joint burnt down,' Valentine continued. ‘Suspected arson. Nothing proved but the insurance company wriggled out. Gilpin lost the lot. Lock, stock and Early Kooka. After that, everything turned to shit. Wife left him, children turned their backs, dog died. He hit the skids and hit the bottle. The whole country music ball of twine. These days, he's down to his uppers, flogging dross out of an old nissen hut across from the cargo sheds at Victoria Dock.'

I vaguely remembered a rusting wartime relic half lost in the eyesore industrial jungle between the wharves and the railyard.

‘Has he tried to sell this so-called story to anyone else?' said Inky, back to the point.

‘He spoke to some of my esteemed colleagues. We all told him the same thing. If you've got evidence, take it to the police.' Valentine shook his head, benignly amused at the human capacity for self-delusion. ‘People read something in the paper, they start seeing dollar signs.'