The Final Cut

by Robert Jeffreys

  ‘I should have run away the first time I realised what he was. Vanity kept me there. I was so proud to land such a rich and powerful man, I was so proud of my intellect, my appearance. I sold my freedom for vanity. Can you believe that, Mr Cardilini?’

  ‘I’m finding it difficult. What does your husband do?’

  ‘His family have merchant ships. Import export. It gives them a lot of commercial power. They have a building in Fremantle. You would have seen it.’

  Cardilini nodded. He remembered being impressed by it; he might have felt envious of such an edifice, encouraged no doubt by his father who’d been a dockworker.

  ‘My husband, Daniel, is the fourth generation. His grandfather is still alive and he …’ here she paused, ‘… he knows more about Daniel than he lets on. He wasn’t happy when Daniel got married. If I hadn’t converted … Now I wish he’d stopped the marriage. I thought he didn’t like me and made no attempt to hide it. I believe he thought I withheld myself until I caught Daniel. And that’s exactly what I did. More fool me.’

  ‘Would the grandfather support your claims?’ Cardilini asked. Mrs Abraham slowly shook her head. Cardilini turned angry eyes to Spencer. ‘Spencer, get a camera.’

  ‘No,’ Mrs Abraham said.

  ‘We’ll develop them, no one else will see them, but should what you are saying happen …’

  ‘All right, everything is in your hands now anyway.’

  Spencer set up the camera and took the shots. As soon as she was finished, Mrs Abraham looked at her watch. ‘I’ve got to go. I don’t expect you to do anything. I don’t want you to do anything. I’ve thought about it and I believe there’s nothing you can do. My husband’s lawyers are very sharp.’ She stood, attempted a smile and walked to the door. Spencer saw her out.

  ***

  Twenty minutes later Spencer burst back into the office. Cardilini was making notes in Spencer’s book.

  ‘My God. I can’t believe that’s her. You should have seen her at university.’ She threw herself into her chair.

  ‘When did you go to university?’

  ‘A year after I was a constable. The department helped me. It took ten years part-time. I graduated a year ago. Sally was full-time.’

  ‘So you could get a job as a lawyer?’

  ‘A female lawyer? Maybe.’

  ‘But you don’t want to?’

  ‘I want to be right here, doing exactly what I’m doing. I want rape in marriage to be a crime. I want physical violence against women in marriage to be treated as a crime.’

  ‘You believe her?’

  ‘What? Yes. Don’t you?’

  Cardilini shrugged. So much about Mrs Abraham’s story bugged him. ‘We carry a camera with us at all times in future.’ He got up. ‘Let’s go.’ He stopped, turned and looked squarely at Spencer. ‘By the way, I’m going to press charges against Archie Cooper from that domestic in Fremantle.’

  Spencer’s eyes widened; she inhaled deeply, jumped from her chair and embraced him. Cardilini looked miserably over her shoulder, arms hanging by his sides like a man condemned.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Thursday, 18 November 1965

  6 p.m.

  From his driveway, Cardilini perused his front yard. The buffalo grass runners he and Paul had put in a week ago were gradually greening. Something, at least. He climbed from the car, and after placing his jacket on the front verandah railing, grabbed the hose. The water pocked the black sand and pooled on the surface. Betty had often complained about the soil and he wondered now how she had managed to grow anything at all. Last week he’d pruned the rose bushes and fruit trees, which now stood naked and stark – while in other front yards the very same plants were flourishing with lush green leaves and shows of colour. I mucked up again.

  The squeak of the front fly-screen door announced his son’s presence. Paul was a younger and fitter version of Cardilini. But where his father’s colouring was dark, Paul was fair: his face had a tenderness, reminiscent of Betty’s patient care rather than Cardilini’s forthrightness. The past year had matured Paul beyond his years.

  ‘I’ve got some chops for dinner, Dad,’ Paul said.

  ‘Thanks.’ Cardilini watched the water continue to pool.

  ‘Put your finger on the nozzle, it sprays better.’

  Cardilini tried that technique for a while. ‘It just won’t soak in.’

  They stood for a moment watching the arcing of the water.

  ‘Something’s wrong with the sand,’ Paul said.

  ‘Do you remember what your mother did to stop that?’

  Paul pondered the question. ‘No, but she would’ve spoken to you about it.’

  Cardilini flicked the stream at the rose bushes. ‘Roses aren’t doing anything.’

  ‘No one else has pruned theirs.’

  ‘Wrong time, do you reckon?’

  Paul sat down on the front step. He could feel the heat from the jarrah boards. ‘I don’t know. Maybe we should’ve asked someone.’

  ‘We couldn’t leave them; they were snagging people walking by.’

  Rays of sunlight penetrated the canopy of jacarandas that lined the street and danced in the arc of water. ‘When the grass grows a bit more we should buy a sprinkler,’ Paul said.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll put the spuds on, then.’ The fly-screen squeaked as Paul re-entered the house.

  ***

  Father and son stood side by side drying dishes after dinner.

  ‘Why don’t you come to the drive-in tonight?’ Paul said. ‘It’s a James Bond movie.’

  ‘Any good?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  An image of Betty on the front seat beside him and Paul perched on a cushion beside her watching a movie came uninvited. ‘But you’ll be working.’

  ‘Yeah, but you can still watch the movie.’

  ‘You ever see anyone by themselves at a drive-in?’

  Paul didn’t answer. As he was putting the plates away he said, ‘There’s a girl I like. She just finished first-year uni.’

  ‘Oh yeah? She like you?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  Paul scrubbed vigorously at the table. ‘You could invite someone. If you wanted to.’

  ‘No. I can’t.’

  ‘You should, one day.’

  ‘One day?’ Cardilini hung his tea towel on the oven door handle.

  ‘Is Spencer nice?’ Paul asked.

  ‘Spencer’s a kid.’

  ‘She can’t be a kid, you said she was there in ’53. She must be late thirties by now. Why don’t you invite her?’

  ‘What? Don’t be mad. She’s probably married.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Uh huh. You found that out.’

  ‘People talk. It’s a big thing, a female detective.’

  ‘Boyfriend?’

  ‘Apparently not.’

  ‘Dad, you old fox.’

  ‘No, mate, really, I just heard; I never would’ve asked.’

  ‘Still, you like her.’

  ‘Paul, really, I’m ancient. You’ve got no idea.’

  ‘You’re not that much older than her.’

  ‘That’s enough. You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘If you say so, Mr Know-it-all.’

  Cardilini walked to the lounge room and put on a Rimsky-Korsakov album from his wife’s collection.

  Paul came in and leant against the doorframe. ‘Mum would understand, you know.’

  Cardilini looked up heavily. ‘Mate, as I say, you have no idea.’

  ‘I have no idea? Oh yeah, right: you’ve been drunk for twelve months and now sober for a couple of weeks. I think I’ve got a better idea than you. A much better idea. She
was my mother; you only get one of those.’ Paul turned from the door. ‘I’m taking the car,’ he called from the hallway.

  ‘Paul?’ Cardilini heard the car door slam and grimaced as his son ground the gears and took off up the street.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Friday, 19 November 1965

  8.30 a.m.

  Before he left home for the station, Cardilini rang Spencer. ‘This is how it’ll go. It won’t be you and me, I’ve decided it’ll just be me. I got a few more runs on the board so if it goes bad I’ll be fine; you wouldn’t want your first effort to go astray.’

  ‘No, we’re in this together,’ Spencer said.

  ‘No. We do it the way I said …’

  ‘And Sally Abraham?’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘What’re we going to do?’

  Cardilini ran his hand through his thinning hair. ‘You tell me.’

  ‘We should do something.’

  ‘We will do something. Meet me downstairs and don’t forget the camera.’

  ***

  Cardilini had arranged a meeting with Senior Constable Ryan and Constable Appleby at the Fremantle library. ‘A bit awkward meeting at the station,’ Ryan had said on the phone. ‘We’re on duty, so we’ll just wander in. The librarian will give us his office.’

  Spencer had been quiet since leaving East Perth, sensing Cardilini was tense, and now they sat in silence in the chief librarian’s office. When Ryan and Appleby entered they shook hands all round.

  ‘There was never a thought to pursue the prosecution of that weasel Cooper,’ Ryan said. ‘We’ve just never done it. The boss was adamant. Didn’t see it as our role. It’s up to the wife.’

  ‘You spoken to her?’ Cardilini asked.

  ‘No. What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to push for a prosecution,’ Cardilini said.

  Ryan’s mouth fell open. ‘You can’t do that.’

  ‘We’ve been told we can.’

  ‘But … that’s not your job. We don’t prosecute and we don’t get between a husband and his wife. Christ, it’s happening all the time, we’ll never get any policing done.’

  ‘I beg to differ,’ Spencer said. ‘Isn’t policing stopping crime?’

  ‘It’s not a crime.’ Ryan got up and paced. ‘They had a barney, for Christ’s sake, everybody does it.’

  ‘Like what we saw?’ Spencer asked.

  Appleby sat in stunned silence.

  ‘Spencer,’ Cardilini said, ‘we work together; that’s the way it’s done. Senior Constable Ryan is saying exactly what every copper thinks. And he’s a senior constable.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Senior Constable.’

  ‘Yeah, okay. Look, she was alive and none of the injuries were life threatening. Get some perspective, Detective.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Spencer couldn’t look at him.

  ‘Have you authority to do this, Cardilini?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘Yep. From the top.’

  ‘Really?’ Ryan swung his head between the two.

  ‘Yes. Really. Ring Bishop.’

  ‘I will, don’t you worry about that.’ Ryan sat down and, shaking his head, asked, ‘So, tell me what you’re thinking.’

  ‘The commissioner is going to persuade the state prosecutor to prosecute if we have the evidence.’

  ‘Waste of time. Give me the file, son?’ Appleby handed Ryan a manila folder. ‘Here you go. Archie Cooper’s file, and I want it back.’ Cardilini flicked through the two pages it contained. ‘He has a criminal record,’ Ryan said. ‘You’ll see his convictions jotted there. Petty stuff. All a few years ago now.’

  ‘Are there hospital records?’ Cardilini asked.

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Has he done this before?’

  Ryan shrugged.

  ‘Okay. So, what do you think?’

  ‘I think you’re mad,’ Ryan said. ‘But that’s obviously beside the point. He’s well known around town, bit of a joker, people say; coppers who have chatted to him say he’s harmless. He’s got a mouth but that soon disappears.’

  ‘Is the wife, Melody, still in hospital?’ Cardilini asked.

  Ryan shrugged and nodded confidentially. ‘Can we have a word in private?’

  Spencer and Appleby got up and left the office.

  Ryan leaned in to Cardilini. ‘Will you testify if it gets to court?’

  ‘If it gets to court who knows who will be called. Better get your notes together.’

  ‘I might chat to you about that later if it gets that far.’

  ‘Come on, Ryan, what do you really think?’ Cardilini asked, flicking the file onto the desk.

  ‘I think that ratbag should be in prison to get some of the same medicine he likes to hand out.’

  ‘Me too, but …?’

  ‘But it’s very dangerous what you’re doing. We never go there with domestics because everyone loses. You ever seen a domestic situation improve?’

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘Only solution: the wife has to run for the hills.’

  ‘Could we get Cooper for something on the street?’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be keeping an eye out.’

  ‘What do you see as the main obstacle?’ Cardilini asked casually. Even if the police brought charges, where would it stop? He knew a few coppers who were capable of manipulating such a situation to meet ends of their own.

  ‘If we start to step into people’s homes, marriages, and decide who’s at fault, no one will thank us. And what if there are kids? I just don’t like it.’

  ‘Did your guys get any photos of Melody Cooper?’ Cardilini asked.

  Ryan shook his head. ‘Check at the hospital. I haven’t seen her since the ambos took her away.’

  ‘Anyone asked her about pursuing a prosecution?’ Cardilini asked.

  Ryan shook his head again and looked at his watch.

  ‘And there’s something else,’ Cardilini said.

  Ryan answered quickly, ‘If it’s another domestic I don’t want to hear about it.’

  ‘No, no. It’s about Abraham’s Shipping.’

  ‘Yep?’

  ‘You got anything? It doesn’t have to be proved. Rumours, even?’

  Ryan considered Cardilini’s request for a moment and then answered. ‘Death or serious injury are commonplace on their ships. But that’s the docks, isn’t it? I don’t have to tell you. What are you after?’

  ‘Daniel Abraham, the grandson.’

  ‘Yeah, I know him. Arrogant prick, but we can’t lock him up for that, unfortunately.’

  ‘I’d appreciate you doing some digging. I can’t.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do. You keep me well informed in advance with this other business.’

  ‘Shall do. Where’s Archie Cooper now?’ Cardilini asked.

  ‘In a cell. He reckons he has a lawyer coming. Reckons some copper hit him.’

  They both smiled.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Friday, 19 November 1965

  10.15 a.m.

  Cardilini and Spencer entered Fremantle Hospital. Green linoleum and dun-cream walls stretched in every direction. At the reception desk a woman in her fifties was busy copying out a list. Spencer held her badge low where the woman could see it.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We’re looking for Melody Cooper, she came in yesterday,’ Spencer said, replacing her badge.

  The receptionist pushed a stray hair from her eyes and raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes. We wondered when we’d see somebody. Women’s ward, straight through.’

  ‘There haven’t been any other visitors?’ Cardilini asked.

  ‘No. You’re the first, but you’re hardly visitors.’

  ‘So Melody’s been in before?’

  T
he woman looked down at her desk, delaying her answer before looking up and replying with a sigh. ‘Yes. Same thing.’

  ‘The cuts?’ Spencer asked, confused.

  ‘Yes.’ The receptionist nodded.

  ‘Who’s brought her in in the past?’

  The woman exhaled loudly and then said, ‘Apart from you lot, I don’t really know.’

  ‘Police have brought her in before?’ Spencer asked and turned to Cardilini who looked back non-committally.

  ‘Yes,’ the receptionist replied.

  ‘We’ll need her records,’ Cardilini stated.

  ‘Yes, well, that takes time and they won’t be given to just anyone.’

  ‘We’ll wait,’ Cardilini said, leaning on the counter and leaving little doubt in the woman’s mind.

  ‘Yes, okay. Keep your hair on. I’ll tell the matron you’re here.’

  Cardilini nodded to Spencer and they started down the corridor. Spencer turned to Cardilini and said, ‘The bastard.’

  A nurse sat at the entrance to the ward. ‘No visitors at this time,’ she said and stepped from her desk to halt them. Spencer and Cardilini showed their badges.

  ‘Melody Cooper. She in here?’ Spencer asked.

  ‘Ah, okay. Let me close the curtain around her bed first.’

  ‘Concern for the patient’s modesty, do you think?’ Spencer asked when the nurse walked away.

  Cardilini shrugged. ‘Did you talk to Appleby?’

  ‘Yeah. He said he’d willingly testify. He was shaken. I was, too.’

  ‘Did he say anything else? Anything about her being brought here by police?’

  ‘No. But he did say his father is a sergeant stationed …’ Spencer scrunched her nose, ‘… at Midland.’

  ‘Yep, that makes sense.’

  ‘What about Senior Constable Ryan?’ Spencer asked.

  ‘He’d like to see Cooper getting a hard time in jail.’

  ‘But he won’t pursue charges?’

  ‘Spencer, if this is going to work, you need to start seeing domestics from all perspectives, otherwise you’ll become a hin­drance.’

  ‘What? You can’t be serious. What other perspective is there other than criminal?’

  ‘That’d be right. That’s why I had to send you out. Getting a result is more about teamwork than grandstanding.’