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

  ‘Really attacked? My God!’ Genuinely shocked, the older man put down his mineral water, his hand shaking.

  His friend laughed. ‘Oh, it was nothing, really. Some drunks, that’s all. Animals.’

  ‘But what happened? Were you hurt? Were you alone? God, it must have been vile.’

  ‘It was nothing really. We – I just saw these … men when I was walking to the car. And they just chased me.’ Not sure why he lied about being on his own. Not sure why he didn’t mention … ‘Anyway, they just punched the windshield as I drove away. Must have seen me leaving the club.’ Shrugging, it was nothing.

  ‘It makes me so angry!’ The older man’s lip trembled as he spoke. Emotional, protective. ‘Did you call the police? What did you do?’

  ‘Somebody else did, I think. I drove off but I saw the police arrive just after. As I was driving away.’ Seeing the horror still on his friend’s face, he admitted, ‘It was pretty scary.’

  Silent for a few seconds, they surveyed the room. Looking for an excuse to change the subject.

  • • •

  The Vault. Exchange Hotel. Gilligan’s had closed and they’d moved on, flowed like the tide to the next venue.

  Friday night and the Vault was buzzing even though it was the middle of winter. Pushing their way towards the bar the young man stopped to speak to a guy here, guy there, introducing his friend as they went. But the music was too loud and the names were lost in the clamour. And anyway, the young man only exchanged a few words with those he met: it wasn’t as if they were going to start a real conversation with anyone.

  Sometimes, as they squeezed between crowded men pressing close together, their hands touched, fingers gave the merest indication that they’d once been more than friends. Occasionally, the younger man’s hand brushed against the other’s hip when they tried to negotiate a particularly tight passage. And, once, he felt the older man reach out, a soft caress on his buttocks. The contact sent an explosion of desire through him, made him slightly dizzy for a second, his vision blurred. Maybe afterwards they could … He wasn’t sure he could wait until he saw … Until the next day.

  Another mineral water and they’d been there for half an hour, saying nothing. The noise was too much. You couldn’t hear yourself scream.

  They moved on to the Shift, switching drinks to iced water. There were fewer people here so they were able to talk again. At the end of the bar they found a dark corner where they stood close to each other. Very close. The young man felt the heat in him, felt the good times they’d known a few years ago return to make his breathing difficult, to take away his better sense. And he thought he detected the same in his friend, thought he felt his friend yearning, too. And why not? They’d been good together.

  Someone approached them, spoke to the young man. Laughing in a way that asked more questions than words ever could. Listened to the wrong answer. Nodded to ‘the friend’ and moved on.

  ‘Is Michael –’ The young man’s mouth was dry as he tried to speak in a normal voice.

  ‘I’m not seeing Michael until Sunday.’ Eye contact that pierced to the very core.

  Each understood. Moved just a little closer.

  ‘What about –?’

  Someone else shrieked into view. Someone else he knew. Introductions instantly forgotten, the man’s hand on the young man’s shoulder, leaning in to whisper into his ear. The young man shrieking, too. Head back and reckless. The man moving on. His place taken by another. Five minutes’ talking to – Stevie? Stu?’ The older man wasn’t really listening, his gaze starting to wander around the room as he stepped back a little to let another friend in. Very touchy-touchy. Very smiley. A pretty boy. But not really to be trusted, too frivolous and … trivial.

  They stayed until 2am, drifting further apart as a fourth and then a fifth ‘friend’ stopped by to talk. The older man had had enough by the time the last one slid between them. He was ready to go home. The evening had started with so much promise but … Well, it just didn’t deliver.

  The young man could sense that he’d lost his friend for the night. He didn’t mind too much. After all, he was supposed to have this thing going tomorrow: it wouldn’t show much commitment if he started screwing an old boyfriend before they – he and the new man – had really given it much of a chance. Of course, the new man was … but it was different for him. On the other hand, he felt as horny as. It’d been a great night whatever happened now, even if it would be a better night if he could spend it with someone.

  They were leaving the club, stepping into the mild early hours of Saturday morning.

  ‘I’ll grab a taxi at Taylor’s Square,’ the older man said lightly, his eyes fixed firmly ahead.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ the young man smiled. ‘I’ll drop you off.’

  They walked towards where he’d left the Nissan, not hurrying. But not lingering either: they both knew that nothing was going to happen between them now.

  ‘No, really.’ Leaning on the car and looking suddenly tired. ‘It’s no trouble.’

  He unlocked the driver’s door, opened it with a half shrug. ‘If you’re sure?’

  ‘I’m sure. I’ll ring you sometime midweek.’

  ‘Okay.’ Blowing a kiss. ‘Bye.’

  ‘Bye.’

  The sound of a car door closing, an engine starting. The older man watched as the car drove away, heading east along Oxford Street. In the opposite direction to where he was supposed to be staying with friends in Redfern.

  x

  Why the fuck dint he let one of the others go? Shit. Nah, he knew why. He hoped he’d find the chick somewhere down there, somewhere on Campbell Parade. He knew he wouldn’t, but. Hadn’t seen her since Wednesday. Two fuckin’ days, man. Was she, like, avoiding him? Was she scared he’d get on to her again? Shit, he wanted to, but. She’d been better’n any of the others. Walking past Bondi Baths on Notts Avenue towards the steps of the coastal walkway, a bottle of Bundy in his hand. Some 10 metres ahead of him another figure, mid-20s, tall and neat, walking in the same direction. Following the figure down the steps, his mind on the 15-year-old girl, on how she’d felt when he came inside her. As he reached the steps leading up to Marks Park the guy in front of him stopped, turned to face him. Almost for the first time, he noticed him, saw the look on his face, saw the fear, the hope. Open-faced, the other man smiled, tentatively, as though testing him. He held a set of keys, jangled them a little nervously.

  He picked up his pace a little, moving closer, still thinking of the girl, half wondering where the others were.

  ‘Got a smoke, mate?’ His voice sounded as natural as if he was talking to his mates who were waiting for him further along the walkway. He tossed his hair, knowing he looked harmless and friendly: angelic.

  The key-rattler looked at him warily, not expecting the question. ‘No, I don’t –’

  The sound of the punch echoed loud in the night. Immediately followed by the high pitched scream of pain before the victim fell, nearly unconscious, to the ground. A single triumphant laugh as he kicked him hard to the head. Went through his pockets. Found nothing. Took the keys the guy’d been rattling and threw them far out into the ocean. Turned and carried on walking towards Tamarama, swinging the Bundy in his left hand.

  • • •

  The others were waiting where he’d left them, kicking at stones on the pathway, dressed in ‘street fatigues’: baggy trousers, high-tops. Hooded sweatshirt, hood up. Or else in shorts and tee-shirts, khaki coloured, drab. They’d done alright earlier, rolled a poof further round the walkway. Got enough for a couple of bottles of Queen Ad. But that hadn’t lasted long, not with everyone there, the Alexandria guys, some chick and her mates from Randwick. And who the fuck were the boys from Alexandria, anyway? What the fuck did they want? They didn’t know any of them. Had heard of some of them, but. The main guys, couple of the chicks. What the fuck they were doing down here, in Bondi, no-one seemed to know, didn’t want to think about it. It could only be trouble, but.r />
  He rounded the corner, held up the grog, smiling.

  ‘Man, where youse bin, eh?’ Relief dropping into the night like a physical weight. ‘Thought you found some new chick, but. You was so long.’ Knuckling up, lifting fists in greeting.

  ‘Hey man!’ Knuckles coming up, touching others. Wincing, holding up the rum. ‘Bottle shop was busy, but.’

  Small conversations started up like camp fires along the walkway, tribal murmurings to signal the release of tension now that one of the generals was back.

  ‘What youse do to your hand, man? Somebody give you some hassle?’

  Massaged the hand. Smiling. ‘Nah, it’s nothin’, man. Just a scrape, but.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah, mate. It’s nothing. Just like, bruised a knuckle on a faggot’s chin, y’know?’

  ‘You get another one? He bleed, eh?’ Man, this was going to be a good night: rolling a poof, bringing back a bottle of Bundy. Fuck, it was good.

  ‘Nah. Maybe busted his nose, y’know?’ Unscrewing the cap off the bottle, taking a long pull and feeling the fire slide down his throat. ‘It was too dark to see, but.’ Laughing, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘Hey, man, you shoulda fucking seen him, man. Stacked it good. Only slapped the cunt the one time and he goes down good, eh? Jumped on his head to teach him a lesson. Teach him not to be a faggot.’

  ‘Rolled him, but? Get much, eh?’

  ‘Empty, man. Not a fucking cent, eh?’ Shook his head some more: you jus’ wouldn’ believe it, eh? ‘Just his bloody car keys. Sent them bastards flying out into the ocean.’ Swept his arm in an arc, out over the sea. ‘Wheee-splash! Walk home, you shit-stabber!’

  Laughter from all sides, the girls crowding in closer to hear the details. A knee just touching a leg leaning against the rock overhang beside the path. The light in her eyes … Wondering who she belonged to, who’d be giving her a slap if she came much closer.

  ‘Shoulda bin the bastard poofter that went flying, but,’ the girl said directly into his face. ‘Shoulda threw him off the fuckin’ cliff, mate.’ Tits thrust a centimetre nearer his chest.

  ‘Wouldn’t ’a’ been the first time, eh?’ The bottle changed hands.

  ‘Yeah? You see that one, but?’

  ‘See it? I was fuckin’ there, man. Was right in it, but.’ Sneering at the challenge, ready to do what was necessary.

  ‘Yeah? What happened?’ Fishing in his pocket for smokes with one hand, grabbing for the bottle with the other.

  ‘It was him what started it. Was you, wasn’t it, yeah?’ Looking at the young guy with the skateboard. ‘It was always you what started it, but.’

  ‘Wasn’t nothin’ really.’ Shuffling from one foot to another. ‘Jus’ some fuckin’ dirty bastard.’

  ‘Yeah? What happened?’ The question repeated. He wanted to hear this, wanted to know that these kinds of things really went on.

  ‘Was jus’ roun’ the corner.’ Jerking his thumb over his shoulder. ‘Mackenzies Point, y’know. We used to do training there. The Surf Club, but. I made the training squad.’

  ‘You surf, man? I never knowed you fuckin’ surf.’ Starting to laugh.

  ‘Nah, I nev –’

  ‘What fuckin’ happened, man?’ A voice being raised.

  Someone lit a cone, a whooosh of breath exhaled.

  ‘We’d been training an’ they’d showed us where they used to get in the bushes, man. The older blokes showed us. Some of us went back, eh. Later. Looked over the cliff. All the fuckin’ condom packets an’ stuff. They used to get in the bushes, fuckin’. We caught heaps of ’em in there that night, banging one another, but.’

  Total silence, everyone hanging on to every word.

  ‘Yeah?’ Hushed encouragement from someone, maybe one of the girls.

  ‘Yeah. You can walk along the cliff top, there … dickhead Stuart an’ all them used to make me start it all the time. We go walking ’long there, jump up an’ look in the bushes. Jus’ see ’em goin’ for it. Oh, you dirty man!’ Laughter all round, the cone passed along, hand to hand, suck and pass, randomly so some didn’t get it at all.

  ‘But what about the cliff, man?’ Getting impatient. Promised a faggot tossed from a cliff. Wanted to fucking hear about it.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Frowning, remembering. ‘Like we’d jump up an’ catch ’em doin’ it an’ they jus’ keep goin’, man. That night, I went “oooh!” Y’know, screamed at them. They must have been that involved in it they blocked out all the fuckin’ noise, man. An’ the waves were heaps big. Loud, y’know. An’ it was freezing. I had me new Boks from America that day too. I had blood all over ’em after. Went up into the bushes – Stu’, somebody else come too – an’ I go “oooh!” Grabbed a handful of hair an’ went “Dirty fuckin’ maggot”. He shoulda gone right off the fuckin’ cliff that night but he dint. Only about that high where he went over.’ Hand held out below shoulder level, a look of disgust on his face. ‘’Bout four fuckin’ feet. An’ he lies there, cryin’. On a ledge, but. We went down an’ put a cigarette butt out on his head.’

  ‘An’ jus’ left him?’

  Shrugging, looking around for the rum. The bottle was nearly empty. ‘We need some more supplies, man,’ he said assertively: being the centre of attention had given him a certain kudos for the moment and he knew he had to take advantage of it while he could.

  ‘We can cover it. We rolled a cunt at the ATM before we come over. Got 150.’

  ‘While yous’re gone we’ll maybe walk up the top. See if we can find us some poofters to put straight.’

  ‘Yeah, let’s cut their fuckin’ dicks off.’ A girl laughing. ‘We can make ’em suck ’emselves, eh’

  ‘You jus’ lookin’ for somethin’ to put up yerself. Yer can’t get it any other way, but.’

  ‘Hey, we’ll jus’ find ’em, teach ’em a fuckin’ lesson. An’ make the bastards fly!’

  SECTION TWO: FACT

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘That last day does not bring extinction to us, but change of place’

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  (106 BC–43 BC)

  i

  Sunrise Blvde

  Surfers Paradise

  15th July 1998

  N.S.W. Police Headquarters

  The Officer In Charge

  Missing Persons

  Sydney N.S.W.

  Re: ROSS BRADLEY WARREN – Missing 22 July 1989

  Dear Sir,

  We have been advised by the Coroner’s Office to contact your department. As it is now 9 years since Ross disappeared, we feel it is time for a Coroner’s inquest to close the case. We know that there is no way he is still alive and the family feel it should be official so we can put the matter to rest.

  The Coroner’s Office said that the application for an inquest has to come from the investigating officers, so I am hoping you can instigate this matter for us as we do not know where to start.

  Please advise what further steps we are to take.

  Yours sincerely,

  When Kay Warren wrote to the police requesting an inquest into her son’s case she was asking that his ‘change of place’ be made official. As she said, Ross Warren had been missing for nine years: it was time to accept that his last day had come and gone some time ago. He wasn’t coming back.

  But the letter goes further than that and Kay Warren’s words strike a deeper chord. It’s not only a request for the ‘business’ of the case to be settled, it is also a barely disguised emotional plea for the family grieving to begin, the grieving that had been on hold for too long; ‘so I am hoping you can instigate this matter for us’, she writes, ‘as we do not know where to start’. Until Ross Warren was officially declared dead there was always a theoretical chance that he was still alive and if he was alive, at least legally, his parents and brother and sister couldn’t resolve the issue of his absence. No-one in the family believed it but … well, legally he simply wasn’t dead.

  So, what did the police have to do to help? As Kay Warr
en made clear in her letter, it was the police who must ask that an inquest be conducted. They would need to present a brief of evidence to the court disclosing the facts of the 1989 missing person investigation and the coroner would deliver his or her findings based on the evidence contained within that brief. A straightforward process that required a little paperwork and a number of man-hours. Not much to ask for a bewildered family to gain peace of mind that had eluded them for nine years?

  Not much to ask but perhaps too much: the Warren family heard nothing for almost two months.

  Of course, the police would have had other priorities. The level of crime in mid-1998 – especially in Sydney – was on the rise and police resources obviously had to be deployed accordingly. The Warrens understood that. Nevertheless, an acknowledgement…?

  On 5 September Kay Warren again wrote to the police in Sydney. She enclosed a copy of her original letter and asked no more than to be reassured that something would be done at some time. She also expressed a willingness to do whatever she could herself to expedite matters. Her tone wavered on the edge of pleading.

  This time she waited for more than two months before accepting that no reply was to be forthcoming. She contacted the police again, sending her letter by fax: a transmission report let her know it had reached its destination successfully.

  Having previously written as a supplicant approaching authority with all due deference and respect, she was now, on 1 December 1998, politely asserting her rights. She again enclosed a copy of her original correspondence and, in a conciliatory gesture, suggested that it might have been sent to the wrong address, suggested that, somehow, it might have been her fault that the police hadn’t received her earlier letters. However, ‘it should have still found its way to your office’, she said reasonably, before adding, ‘but I have not had a reply’. She also included a phone and fax number in addition to her address. There wasn’t much more she could do to make it easier for the police to contact her, to let her know that the matter was in hand.