Cade entered the inner office under summons to find Salazar already seated across the desk from Benson. The Colombian had a strip of plaster on his hairline above one temple; there was an expression on his face which didn’t belong. There was an incongruous serenity about him, he looked at peace with the world.
Knowing nothing of Salazar’s recent fumble in Rose Park but aware of the evil in him Cade thought, “Something’s happened, something terrible.” Cade sat and glanced at a photograph Salazar had been studying. “Jesus!” He drew in a breath when he recognised Danny Brannigan’s brother. “Where did this come from?” he asked. It was a black and white photocopy but David was readily recognisable. Even though the face was older than Cade remembered and the head was heavily bandaged, it was him.
“My contact sent it over, it came in on the fax, he thinks it would’ve gone to police stations all around the land. It was taken by a bloke named Jennison from the Cairns Sentinel. It’s a photo of an amnesia victim. Of course, they recognised him straight away down here and they’ve sent a cop to Cairns to get him. Brannigan’s still got four and a half years to serve and he’ll get another dose for escaping. I don’t want him caught, I know I could have him hit in the Bay, but anything could happen between now and then. I want you two to get up there right away,” Benson ordered, “you’ll know what to do when you get there.”
Shit, thought Cade, here we go again, more killing, out loud he said, “After all these years of saying nothing, surely Brannigan has accepted his brother’s death as an accident.”
“We didn’t get where we are by not controlling everything within our power.” Benson’s manner was short. “Leave as soon as possible.” he ordered.
Chapter
40
Detective-Sergeant Russell Byers was not a stereotype. He had a knockabout face perched above square shoulders and over the years he had acquired a slight stoop. His was the face in the crowd, the stranger beside you at the game, the person in the old photographs whose name you could never recall. He walked with the stilted gait of an arthritis sufferer.
Byers’ lined and scarred face was testimony to the forty something canny professional fights of his early twenties and the hundred and ten furious amateur bouts before that. His twinkling, larrikin’s eyes together with his lean and slightly twisted frame were a problem for most wrongdoers. He was usually underestimated and immediately under their guard.
Some thought he could be influenced by money left behind without comment after their interview concluded. Others tried intimidation with threats of violence to his person or his family. But there was no family. At home there was only a battle scarred old ex-tomcat whose countenance, except for its missing ear, was alarmingly similar to Byers. All of the overtures and threats only landed their authors in deeper trouble.
Russ’s philosophic thoughts on honesty were quite simple. Like pregnancy, one couldn’t flirt with a little bit of honesty.
There was a dark period in Russ’s juvenile life when he was fighting the accepted norms of society. His anti-establishment attitude at the time always landed him in a situation of disadvantage. For that reason, young Russell believed he was a loser and that some people were born to be like that, downright unlucky.
The precise moment in his life that his luck took a turn for the better was made clearer with the passing of years. That precise moment was easier, now, to pinpoint in retrospect than circa the event. At the time it seemed to the boy fate had delivered another kick in the arse.
‘Uncle Bill’ had been the arresting officer. That was the only piece of luck the boy had needed to get off his vehicle of self-destruction before it hit the wall. Bill Bishop took him home.
He nurtured Russell as a young recruit and guided him through the minefield of corruption rife in the early years of his probation. And then through his uniformed service in the New South Wales Police Force.
Byers was sure without the influence and guidance of his ‘Uncle Bill’ he would have succumbed to the pressure of the systemic corruption which existed throughout the force. A young rookie without support and isolated in a sea of corruption had little chance of remaining honest. Especially through the heady post WWII years of sly grog dealers; starting price betting shops; illegal casinos; brothels; after hours pubs and unlicensed nightclubs.
The first police cars on the scene of a warehouse robbery always first filled up the boot before a list of missing goods was made official. Bank robbers were always credited with a larger haul in police reports than the real amount they got away with. And, “Stick this in your kick, Son,” they were the words the old sergeant would deliver with his handshake. And the corruption would begin.
Russell James Byers was raised in the same Sydney slums of Woollahra and Paddington as Phillip Benson. There he ran wild and unbridled. He was in his twelfth year when his repeated stealing and school truancy brought him to the notice of Child Welfare. Later it landed him in the young offenders dock at the Children’s Court in Albion Street, Surry Hills.
Classified intractable Russell was packed off to Westmead a boy’s boarding school. Westmead was a euphemism that glorified a sadistic children’s gaol run by the Christian Brothers. A Roman Catholic movement which was eventually identified in its true light. A haven for sad deviates who practised their brutality and imposed their sexual will on the unfortunate inmates entrusted to their care.
Those disgraceful people were brought to task when brave individuals stood up in their later years. Their shouts of outrage generated courage in the meeker victims of these crimes and they bonded with the courageous. Their cries became a roar which attracted the attention of a then, unfettered press. That caused both the spotlight of publicity and eventually the myopic eyes of the law to monitor the operations of some of those introverted institutions. A flood of lawsuits both criminal and civil were to follow. But all this was long after Russell’s incarceration.
His tearful mum insisted in the drab brown courtroom that Russell’s misdemeanours were just childish pranks and that he needed her love and care. She was politely listened to and then ignored. They clung sobbingly to each other until forcibly parted and young Russell was transported in a Black Maria to Westmead.
High walls topped with broken glass gave lie to the term school. If the boy was intractable before then inside he became impossible. Russell was segregated and beaten but in the realm of conscious thought and emotion he remained spiritually unbroken.
On his fourteenth birthday he learned of the death of his mother which meant he was an orphan. His dad had died before Russell had started kindergarten. He died from injuries suffered in WWI, the Great War. Great, what a classic misnomer. He had gasped his last in a final coughing fit. A fit brought on by the damage wrought by mustard gas which wafted indiscriminately, in heavier than air clouds through the French trenches. Emanating from advanced German positions the gas would sometimes, ironically, return on an eddying current of air to wipe out the perpetrators.
There were no tears for his mother, Russell had long ago cried his last tear. But there was no one then to love him or for him to love; no one to impose emotional constraints to keep him in line. He was filled with an ever-present anger and a hate for his gaolers. He plotted his escape and went out in the rear of the daily bread delivery van. He fled the bewildered driver at the next stop.
The boy shunned the local railway stations and after a marathon hike he slept the first night in a concrete pipe on a construction site. In the morning he joined the peak hour commuters and hurriedly ignored his way past the ticket collector at Central station. He scaled rides on several trams until he reached the tram terminus at Matraville near the sea at Botany Bay. That was about as far away as anyone could be from Westmead and still be in Sydney.
Russell was hungry and without money or any idea what to do next. A fourteen-year-old alone in the world. He circled Bunnerong powerhouse and walked through the Botany cemetery re
ading headstones.
At Prince Henry hospital he scrounged food from the kitchen then walked through the golf links to Little Bay.
He sat there a while and watched the sea.
Worried that someone might report a kid on a school day sitting on a beach he moved on. He made his way around the northern headland and into Long Bay. From there it was a short walk past the forbidding walls of Long Bay gaol, across Anzac Parade and into Franklin Street. Soon he was back at the tram terminus at Matraville. The second day of freedom had been much like the first, lousy. At least he’d had a reasonably soft bed back at the school.
Night was descending over the suburb and he decided to bed down on the hard, wooden seat in the terminus waiting shed. He was sleeping when the black Ford cruised to a stop in response to a complaint that ‘a drunk was asleep in the tram shed and was making the women travellers nervous’. Bill Bishop shook him awake, blinding him with his flashlight in the process. When the boy’s eyes became sensitive enough to make out the police uniform he tried to bolt but he was caught by the shoulder in a grip which hurt. The short scuffle brought a response from the driver of the PD.
All police patrol cars of the era were black Ford sedans, with the numberplate starting with PD, and all plainclothes policemen of the era wore hats. These were strict departmental rules. They only served to make a surprise police operation an impossibility. Applicants in those days for the jobs of ‘cockatoos’ did not require a high degree of expertise. Or even intelligence.
“Are you OK, Bill?”
These two were uniformed.
“Yeah it’s only a kid,” the cop said as he dragged the boy into the back seat of the PD and sat with him. “Turn on the dome light.” Bill Bishop was the oldest constable in the New South Wales police force. That was because he belonged to no internal pressure group. He always did what he thought was the right thing, often flying in the face of police procedure. It’s why he was still a constable at forty. When the light came on he said, “Christ! What happened to you, Son?” He was looking at the sores and bruises on Russell’s legs.
“The brothers caned me for muckin’ up.”
“The brothers. What brothers?”
“The Christian brothers.”
“What bloody Christian brothers?”
“Westmead.”
“Shit! Look what the bastards have done to him, Jim.”
“Yeah.” Jim Pascal didn’t sound too interested.
Bishop had assessed his partner as a brash, flashy young bloke who thought he was going places. “Just wait until he comes up against that ceiling of corruption, it’ll be crash or crash through,” he observed.
Bishop had long ago crashed.
“Let’s take him to Child Welfare, get him out of our hair.” Pascal advised.
“I’m not goin’ back!”
“Shut up y’cheeky little bastard.” Pascal said and aimed a slap at the boy’s ear. It landed on Bishop’s forearm.
“No more, Jim! He’s had enough of that. Why don’t you want to go back, Son?” the senior constable quizzed the boy.
“They bash me.”
“D’you reckon they had a reason?” Pascal asked.
“Might’ve.” The boy muttered.
“No one ever has a reason to beat kids,” Bishop said and then added, “drive by my place Jim, I’ll get you to bundy off for me.”
“Christ, not again! I know what you’re gonna do, you’re gonna get us into more trouble.” Pascal sighed as he eased the gear stick into first and released the clutch, “I’m never gonna get anywhere in this force.” he moaned.
Bill Bishop lived alone and he bedded Russell down in his spare room. Next morning, he was impressed. When he looked in on the lad he found him sitting on the end of the already made bed. At least there were some elements of his institutional experience that he chose to take on board. The old constable’s mind became a degree easier as he thought maybe it’s not too late.
“Let’s have some breakfast,” he said.
After their silent meal he called the station and told them he’d be in late. They bussed it from Bishop’s home to a decrepit old building in the dock area of Woolloomooloo. It had a sign on the outside that said, POLICE BOY’S CLUB.
As soon as young Russell went through the doors his nostrils were assailed by an exciting odour. It was a mixture of resin and liniment and sweat. He stood in wide-eyed wonder as he scanned a photographic history of the place tacked up around the walls in a serendipitous fashion.
The boy moved along a gallery of proud, smiling faces beaming at him in black and white. Hands held trophies hard won and as precious to them as any pirate’s trove. He moved past ropes hanging like vines from the rafters, rings suspended so high he would need a stepladder to reach them. There was a vaulting horse, a springboard, parallel bars and weights. And at the far end of the hall that hempen square – the boxing ring – stood stark and dominant.
Russell was studying a series of photographs on the wall beyond the ring. They showed a slim, fair young man in various stances caught by the camera as he battled a different foe in each frame. He was there in one huge study holding up a large belt that clearly stated BANTAMWEIGHT CHAMPION OF THE WORLD.
“That’s Jimmy Carruthers, he used to train and fight out of here as an amateur.” The stranger’s voice was soft and proud, “We’ve had a few champs here, but he was the best. He still comes back here to see us when he can.” Bishop had come out of the front office with another man who was dressed in a Jacky Howe singlet and tracksuit pants. He was wearing clean Dunlop Volleys and it was he who had volunteered the information.
“C’mere, young feller,” the old cop beckoned, “this is Officer John Murray, he’ll look after you till I pick you up this afternoon. This is young Russell Byers, Jack, I’m sure you two will find something to fill in the day.”
The slap of a slim manila folder landing on the desk snapped Byers from his reverie. He looked up, it was Sykes. “The boss said this one’s yours, Sherlock. He reckons you shouldn’t have much trouble with it, but someone else’s gotta do your work while you’re gone so get the lead out.”
A change is as good as a rest so they say. Byers would welcome either option at present. The bastard struck again last night. A young prostitute in a lane off Rose Park just up the road at the Cross. All of the data hadn’t yet been collated but he knew it was his Night Monster. If Byers job depended on cost effectiveness he would have been sacked long ago because he was no nearer his quarry now than when he began the chase.
He opened the file. Memories flooded back. He spoke in a murmur, “David Michael Brannigan, it’s been a long time but I remember him, what a fine Irish name it is. What’s he done, now? Nothing. He’s been sighted, he’s in the Cairns Base Hospital.”
It looked as though a change would be Byers current option. His phantom still eluded him but he knew one thing for sure. In his absence, unless his spectre fouled up big-time, no one here would get him. At least that’s what the press were trumpeting – Darlinghurst couldn’t track a bloody elephant through snow.
Chapter
41
When Russell Byers first confronted young Brannigan with the warrant for his arrest he had been impressed by the young man’s attitude. In most of Byers’ arrests the charged persons’ paramount thoughts were for themselves. How were they going to get out of the predicament they were in? Brannigan, Byers still remembered after ten years was exceptional. He was in deep and genuine mourning. He seemed to think if he was responsible for the accident then he should be punished. Somewhere in his contrition was the muddled thought that punishment might make things a little easier for his brother where ever he was.
Byers followed Brannigan’s case through the court. The sentence, which the young bloke got sat uncomfortably with the old cop. Over the years he’d seen similar cases with similar weights of evidence where
the defendants walked free. Five years was an inordinately harsh sentence. The tough detective visited Brannigan at the prison farm where he was serving his time. He wanted to help.
“Is there anything I can do for you, Son?” he asked although he could see young Brannigan was coping alright.
“No. I’ll be OK,” he said, “thanks for coming, Mister Byers.”
“It’ll soon pass Dave. It’s amazing how quickly it seems to have gone when it’s behind you and how slow it seems to go when it’s in front of you. But it’s the same length of time looking from either end. Keep your nose clean, Son, and don’t get into trouble. You’ll get time off. You could be out in two years.”
For Byers, Brannigan’s case had been a welcome diversion. He’d been a year by then searching for the Monster and was still no nearer to his quarry. Descriptions, to say the least, had been varied and vague but he did have one stroke of luck. It was in the form of an Interpol report on an overseas killer which found its way across his desk. A similar MO induced Byers to compare DNA printouts. To his excitement he realised that the Colombian killer and his Monster were one and the same. He at last had a clue which was accompanied by a more pertinent description. It was heartening but it was evidence which would be useful only after the bastard’s capture.
Russell Byers was mildly surprised, a few months later, when he learned of Brannigan’s escape. Now after ten years he had the job of bringing him back. Another welcome diversion because he was still no nearer to catching his rampaging monster.
After the plane touched down, at Cairns airport, the plan was for Byers to be met by young constable Warren Parsons. Parsons was the uniformed officer who had interviewed Brannigan in the hospital. He’d been seconded to Byers by the Cairns police. He was the only police officer who had recently eyeballed the fugitive, he would have a recognition of his then current appearance. The old cop knew the value of Parsons’ recent sighting of Brannigan would last as long as it took the fugitive to grow a beard, or moustache, or sideburns, or any other hairy disguise. But he did need a guide.
The Cooktown Grave Page 17