The Beat: A True Account of the Bondi Gay Murders Read online

  THE BEAT

  A TRUE ACCOUNT OF THE BONDI GAY MURDERS

  I.J. FENN

  Brought to you by KeVkRaY

  To those betrayed by the system and to those who tried to right the wrong.

  CONTENTS

  Section One: Fiction?

  1989

  Section Two: Fact

  Chapter 1 That Last Day…

  Chapter 2 A Simple Matter of Paper-Shuffling

  Chapter 3 What Happened to Ross Warren?

  Chapter 4 The McCann Reports

  Chapter 5 Old Ground, New Eyes

  Chapter 6 The Warren Investigation

  Chapter 7 The Love Triangle

  Chapter 8 John Russell’s Last Night

  Chapter 9 Death by Drowning?

  Chapter 10 The Major Crime Squad Investigation

  Chapter 11 The Street Gangs of Philadelphia

  Chapter 12 The Search for the Missing Hair

  Chapter 13 Phone Tapping the Bondi Boys

  Chapter 14 Phone Tapping the Alexandria Eight

  Chapter 15 McGrath: Fantasist or Accessory?

  Chapter 16 ‘We Used to Bash Heaps of People’

  Chapter 17 Real Big Tough Boys

  Chapter 18 Young and Dumb

  Chapter 19 Steve Page’s Conclusions

  Section Three: Epilogue & Prologue

  Chapter 20 A Thorough and Impeccable Investigation

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  SECTION ONE: FICTION?

  1989

  i

  ‘Oh, but it was gorgeous! I’m telling you, it was too beautiful.’

  ‘Especially for him!’

  ‘Wellll…’

  The two men laughed a high soft laugh, throwing back their heads and stretching their perfect throats to the night sky in case anyone was watching. It really was too funny to think about. But not quite so funny that they didn’t stop laughing, straighten their coats and adopt the right expression before pushing open the door to the Midnight Shift on Oxford Street.

  Inside the club the darkness had a different quality to the city darkness outside: closer, more absorbing, a darkness that concealed rather than one which simply obscured. The two men walked to the bar, holding their heads high but making sure they looked no-one in the eye. Not that there were many people in, but those who were, were certain to be looking at them because that’s what you did at the Shift: as far as the light allowed, you checked out everyone who came in through the door.

  From behind the bar Kurt watched the boys come closer. They were regulars, always together. Seemed to know a lot of people but tended to keep to themselves.

  ‘Pellegrino,’ the taller one said casually when he had Kurt’s attention. ‘Please.’ He looked aslant at the barman, as though he’d lowered his head – which he hadn’t – and was glancing upwards and sideways. Flirting.

  ‘Two?’ Not only did myth have it that Kurt never smiled but it was also claimed that he’d never used more than three words at a time. These myths somehow made Kurt very desirable and the fact that he was rumoured to have a stunningly beautiful and extremely politically powerful boyfriend at home did nothing to diminish that desirability.

  ‘One!’ the tall boy squealed archly. ‘And no glass!’

  Kurt watched them take the drink across the floor to the far wall, their hips sashaying to the low sound of the dance beat as they went. He knew they would have two Pellegrinos during the next hour and then they would leave. Sometimes he almost wondered why they bothered coming in here. Almost, but not quite. He knew they came in because they had to, that if they didn’t come to the Midnight Shift – like if they didn’t go on a regular basis to the Vault in the Exchange Hotel across the road, or to Gilligans a few metres up, at Taylor Square – they wouldn’t be a part of it any more. They would be nothing going nowhere.

  He looked with fraudulently dull eyes towards where the DJ was lighting a cigarette and nodded when the other man glanced in his direction. Time to crank up the volume.

  ii

  The girls were cold and pissed off. They’d brought the fucking grog and now the boys had nearly finished it. And the more they tossed down their throats, the more they wanted to grope and finger them, the girls. Well, fuck that. There’d been enough hands up skirts tonight. If she didn’t get a pull on the bottle pretty damn quick, she was going home.

  ‘Hey, where you goin’, mate?’

  ‘Jus’ moving away from you, eh. White boys stink.’

  The others laughed.

  ‘Aw, c’mon, man.’ Said with hardly a slur. ‘You was keeping the wind off of me. I’ll get cold if youse don’t sit next to me again.’

  More laughter. Relief that there wouldn’t be anything ugly. A cone pulled from a bag, a disposable lighter flicked into life.

  ‘Hey, I dint know you got smokes, man? Why youse dint say nothin’ ’bout no cones, man?’

  ‘Oh, fuck off. You’re a waste of time.’

  A thick spume of blue cloud blown out towards the sea, towards the surf that was crashing onto the beach 50 metres away. ‘You want some?’

  A shake of the head, no. Tired and cold and would rather go home. But he’d told her he was going to fuck her tonight so she couldn’t go home yet, she’d have to wait till he was ready, she supposed. She wondered where he would take her … if they might go somewhere nice … But they didn’t have anywhere nice to go, really. He had a couple of mates with a place on Ramsgate Avenue but they were much older than him even though he was 17. So he didn’t like to ask too many favours in case … And anyway, it was one o’clock in the morning: you couldn’t go and wake people up at one o’clock in the morning just so you could borrow a mattress for a few minutes. She sighed, hoping no-one would hear. Just as long as it wasn’t going to be like when he did one of the other girls the first time. Against the wall with everyone watching, eyes nearly bursting out of heads.

  ‘You listenin’, girl?’ Standing again, pulling down her coat and hoisting her bag onto her shoulder. ‘I said I’m goin’, mate. Are you comin’?’

  ‘She’s with me tonight.’ Grinning. ‘Know what I mean?’

  ‘Yeah? Your girlfriend ’ud like that, eh? You fucking a 15-year-old, but.’

  ‘Yeah, a 15-year-old fuck-junkie!’

  Laughing a short explosion across the beach. An explosion cut short by the slicing of headlights across their faces.

  ‘Bastard police. Shove the bottle, man.’

  The car came slowly along the road above the promenade, routine cruising. It stopped 10 metres from where they were sitting, one of the constables getting out and walking over. He moved casually as if he might join them for a smoke, take a swig out of the bottle if it was offered. But no-one was fooled. They knew what to expect: it happened often enough, one way or another.

  ‘You can fuck off, man. You don’t own this footpath.’

  ‘Too cold to sit around here all night,’ the constable said in a conversational tone, moving into their space but stopping short of actual contact. Behind him, the car idled quietly with his partner sitting at the wheel, watching.

  ‘We was jus’ leavin’. Air roun’ here smells like shit.’

  Loud laughter. Everyone starting to rise, saying nothing. Already defeated.

  A five-second pause and the constable turned on his heel. There was no need to say any more, no need to aggravate the situation. He knew they would go now, knew they’d move on from here and maybe call it quits for the night, or maybe go somewhere else to sit and do whatever drugs they were doing. Or whatever. The point was, he’d asserted his authority, let them know that whatever they did, they had to be
respectful of the law. Of his position.

  They also paused, also asserted their authority. This was their territory. Paused for less time than the constable, but long enough to show they weren’t just some punks who let themselves be pushed around.

  With a sneer hands were shoved into pockets, phlegm spat onto the ground. Moving off, heading off towards the pathways that zigzagged behind the surf club. Nonchalant, I don’t give a fuck! Walking determinedly, like they were going somewhere for a reason, going into battle rather than retreating from it. Bastard cops. Fucking shithead bastards.

  Out of sight of the beach, and sheltered by the squat building of the clubhouse, the grass area stretching up to Campbell Parade was greendark and gravequiet. No traffic noise disturbed the night, the police car being long gone, the soft padding of their trainers hardly making a sound. And the muffled snarl of the waves providing only a muted backdrop to the underlying silence. The scattered trees cast weird night-shadows over the path they walked along and, further off, small grottos of hard darkness stood in the lee where more than two or three trees huddled together.

  They walked along the path between the shadows, sullenly, not quickly, less determined now, thinking of their next move. A face-saving move that could bring the night to a decent close.

  Up near the road, at the end of the path they’d just turned onto a lone figure was coming towards them, a figure walking with quick light steps heading for … where? There was only the surf club and the beach in the direction he was going, only the one o’clock nothingness of sand and water. He was a long way off, 30, maybe 35 metres away. Watching him without interest, not really giving a shit where the fucker was going: he was nothing to do with them.

  Until he was only 10 metres away. Ten metres … eight … Something in the lightness of the stranger’s pace had changed … still light but with a different quality … The quick light skipping steps were gone, replaced by a wary lightness, agile and flighty … Seven metres … six … five metres … Flighty … The smell of fear coming off the fucker the nearer he came … Runty little shit … the smell of pathetic readiness to run like a bastard, scared of … of what? Pathetic little wanker … Four metres, then three … nearly level … Nobody saying a word now … tension in the air as the stranger drew level … moving away slightly … to the side … giving them a wide berth … up on the balls of his feet, dancing … dancing like a ballet dancer … past one … past another and another … past the rest … moving towards the surf club, the open beach…

  ‘He’s a fucking poofter!’ Spinning, midstride, turning and swearing, hands out of pockets, moving in a blur, cutting the darkness in a thick swathe, fists balled hard, feet leaving the ground.

  The stranger hit the path face first, his hands outstretched, grazing the gravel. A dull sensation in the middle of his back, where knees had hit, slowly became the centre of a sharp pain as the kicks started to land. He covered his head, whimpering, hearing only the sounds of anger, the sounds of hatred above him as feet thudded into his back, his kidneys. Fists pummelling into his neck and barely protected face. Whimpering and feeling small bones break, tasting the salt of his own blood, first from the outside, from the shattered pulp that had been his nose, and then from the inside, from the collapsed lung and burst kidney. And then, thankfully, the pain stopped as he lost consciousness, slowly drifting away with the night words fading warmly in his ears.

  ‘Fucking shit-stabbing faggot!’

  ‘Arse bandit wanker!’

  ‘Should be fucking normal, you poofter bastard!’

  ‘Maggot!’

  And behind it all, other sounds, gentle sounds far removed from the violence, sounds of the surf, sounds maybe of a girl softly crying … or laughing.

  iii

  ‘It’s so cold!’

  ‘Well, hurry up and let’s get to the car!’

  The two men huddled close as they walked from the Midnight Shift, making their way along Oxford Street to where they’d parked the old Nissan. All around them the night shone hard with a 2am blackness, a blackness that’s really an obscure shade of green in the city. Traffic flowed past them as they hurried, purred towards Taylor Square and Kings Cross and the CBD. A calm and steady flow, not the snarling rush of daylight hours but still…

  ‘Oi! Ya fucking poofs! Yah, ya faggots!’

  Across the street a tight knot of men swayed on the edge of incapability. One was throwing up in the gutter, watched by another who seemed unable to move, unable to avert his eyes from the rhythmical spewing of vomit pulsing from his friend’s mouth. Behind them, the man who had shouted stood at the entrance to a narrow street, not much more than an alleyway, rocking unsteadily back and forth as he tried to piss against the wall while he stared with unfocused eyes at the two men leaving the club. His bleary, stationary stagger made him stumble a little now and then, causing him to wave his steaming piss in violent arcs which now soaked his jeans, now streamed out into the main street, and now, finally, dribbled over his fingers. He leaned his head against the wall, trying to hold himself still.

  ‘I hate poofs,’ he muttered with an effort of concentration.

  The two friends laughed aloud.

  ‘Look who looks like the poof, darling!’ The taller man called with a giggle.

  ‘She’s a big boy, though, isn’t she?’

  The two dissolved into fits of laughter as they reached the Nissan and inserted the key in the door.

  On the opposite side of the street an ominous quiet had fallen, heavy and leaden. The man pissing against the wall now dripped only over his shoes as he moved clumsily towards the kerb. Alongside, two more seemed to have sloughed off their drunkenness as they started into the roadway.

  ‘I’ll fucking show you, ya bastard fuckin’…’

  ‘– cheeky cunt –’

  ‘I’ll have yer fuckin’ balls off –’

  The Nissan’s doors slammed shut. As the engine came to life the first drunk reached the car. A crunching of gears as a fist pounded on the roof. Another smashed into the side window at the back as the car lurched forwards. No-one inside or outside the car made a sound: no-one screamed abuse, no-one shouted or threatened, no-one cried or pleaded. The game had gone beyond that: this was the pivotal moment, the moment of crisis. Two lives were on the line and every grain of energy, every tautened nerve was needed to effect the outcome of those lives. Both in the roadway and inside the car. Another lurch, sweating gear change … a face at the windscreen, wild snarl on its features … slamming a broken fist against the glass … blood smear like a portent of the future … and then somewhere in the distance the sound of a siren, seesaw wailing of a police vehicle as the Nissan jumped and lunged and straightened out heading for Bondi and safety.

  A hundred metres and the rear view mirror showed two of the drunks being bundled into the back of a police car, two more long gone. On the far side of the road a man bent double over the gutter, his innards seeming to fall from the unseen perfect ‘O’ of his mouth…

  iv

  The ball hit the backboard, bounced on the rim and looped high into the air. Away from the basket. A surge of aggression as a pack of boys jostled beneath its trajectory, elbows and sweat and the flapping of tee-shirts in the drizzling rain. A shove in the back. Sprawling arms and legs on the asphalt and a sudden hiatus as everyone waited. The ball bouncing unnoticed out of court.

  ‘Who the fuck –?’

  Grazed and angry, leaping to his feet with clenched fists and eyes flashing. Head swivelling a blazing stare around the widening circle about him.

  ‘Which bastard –?’

  ‘C’mon, man. It was an accident.’ The placatory voice that always breaks the silence. Lying for the sake of an uneasy peace.

  ‘Yeah, man. He dint mean –’

  ‘Fuckin’ accident was it?’ Moving closer.

  The group waited, barely daring to breathe. A psycho, that’s what he was. Claimed he’d already killed another guy. A faggot up at the Cross. The rumour had it he
’d been beaten to death, flogged and kicked till the life had gone from him.

  ‘Accidents happen, man.’

  ‘Only if you’re fuckin’ careless, but.’

  ‘Youse the one what fell.’

  ‘Yeah, this time.’

  ‘Meanin’?’

  ‘Barnard’s comin’’ Hissed from somewhere at the perimeter of the circle.

  The history teacher made his way without haste in their direction. He’d seen the melee, wondered what was going on, what the little thugs were up to. Drugs, he supposed. Or worse.

  As he came nearer one of the supernumerary kids, a gofer, brought the basketball over from where it had been lying beside the fence. The game started up again, a lacklustre passing and jogging with no sense of purpose: he turned away when he was still 10 metres away. Let the little shits get on with it, he thought with relief. He went back inside out of the rain.

  v

  The air was still damp where the memory of rain hung in the evening sky and a mean wind had come up from the south bringing steel sharp temperatures with it. Except for the seven youths sharing Winfields under the overhang of the trees near the boys’ high school, Moore Park was empty.

  ‘Fuck, man. Iss like … wha’ we doin’ here, man? Is too fuckin’ cold, but.’

  ‘Yer only cold cos yer a runty little fuck.’

  ‘Nah, he’s right, man. Even the fuckin’ faggots won’t come out in this shit.’