Kidnapped

by Mark Tedeschi

  * * *

  Unbeknown to Stephen Bradley, before their lottery win Bazil and Freda Thorne led lives that were in some respects less fortunate than his own. Freda was a country girl, born in Eugowra, New South Wales, to Sophia and Hilton Thorncraft. She was brought up in the township of Cowra. She met Bazil Thorne during the Second World War when he was stationed at the Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Cowra. Freda was a keen pianist who used to play at local dances. After their marriage, Bazil and Freda settled in Sydney, and Bazil joined his father working as a commercial traveller, which involved him hawking clothing and other smallgoods to large country stores. This occupation required relentless travel and lugging of heavy samples. Whereas once upon a time a commercial traveller was financially well rewarded, by the 1950s the modern world had largely overtaken the role, so that Bazil’s income was just barely enough to live a reasonable life. Bazil and Freda’s firstborn child, Cheryl, suffered from a severe handicap which precluded her from living with her parents, so they were forced to take the grim decision to place her in an institution to the north of Sydney for severely handicapped children. Unlike other families in the same predicament, they always acknowledged the existence of their eldest child. Freda and Bazil had two more children: Graeme in 1951 and Belinda in 1957. The Thornes were a typical, conservative Australian family, who lived modest but honest lives that required them to struggle to make ends meet. In late 1959, they moved into a basic, ground-floor rental flat in Bondi, which was small but in reasonable condition. There was virtually no prospect of them ever owning their own home. That is – until the lottery win.

  Bazil and Freda doted on their children: Graeme, who had an amiable, reserved disposition and was always courteous and well behaved, and Belinda, their gorgeous girl whose birth had allowed them to finally overcome the tragedy of their eldest, Cheryl. Like most Australian parents of the time, Bazil and Freda were strict with their children, but also loving and attentive. The move to Bondi in 1959 gave them the added bonus of living opposite Dickson Park – a large expanse of terraced grass with very little vegetation. After Graeme turned eight in December of that year, Freda finally let him go across the road on his own to the park where he would play with his Dinky toy cars together with some neighbouring children. Her protective nature caused her to frequently keep an eye on him. At least he was close by and not associating with the rough boys who hung out and frequently fought with each other in the thick bush at the Thomas Hogan Reserve in nearby Francis Street.

  Bazil’s work would often take him away from Sydney for days at a time, requiring Freda, a typical Australian housewife who had given up employment upon marriage, to care for her family alone. Their financially constrained circumstances allowed them few luxuries, so holidays and outings to restaurants were rare and much appreciated.

  The lottery win initially caused Bazil and Freda to pause in their lives and gave them an opportunity to consider exactly what it was that they wanted for themselves, their children, and their elderly parents. They were determined that they would not allow the windfall to change them as people, or to alter their established friendships. They eventually decided to continue with their lives uninterrupted for a period, and then after some months, in an atmosphere of calm reflection, they would make decisions how best to use the money to enhance their lives and the lives of others. In the meantime, the lottery payout was sitting in a bank account accumulating interest at a rate which matched Bazil’s earnings as a commercial traveller. The only step that they did take immediately was to make arrangements to have the telephone installed in their Bondi flat, so that Freda would not have to walk up to the nearby public telephone box, which was often occupied or out of order. It also meant that Bazil could give her advance warning of when he was due home from his trips to the country.

  * * *

  For days, at the family home the Bradleys owned in Clontarf – a swish, new, northern Sydney suburb with leafy views of Middle Harbour – Stephen was repeatedly drawn back to the photograph of Bazil Thorne. It was as if it taunted him every time he walked past the folded newspaper. The more he looked at it, the more it exemplified the marked contrast between Bazil Thorne’s easy, simple, undeserved life and his own life of struggle and hardship.

  Then, in a seemingly serendipitous coincidence, four days after Bazil had won his prize, in a magazine called The Weekend Bradley saw a two-page article headed ‘The Vilest Crime of All’, which described a number of kidnappings-for-ransom that had occurred in overseas countries. Most Australians who read the article felt secure in the knowledge that such shocking events did not occur in their own decent, law-abiding society, but Bradley soaked up every detail of it. One of the cases concerned the kidnapping in France earlier that year of four-year-old Eric Peugeot, grandson of Jean-Pierre Peugeot, the sixty-three-year-old head of the French automotive dynasty, who was then estimated to be worth $US40 million. Bradley read how the kidnappers had conducted intensive surveillance of the family before kidnapping the boy on 12 April 1960, leaving a ransom note near a sandpit from which they had taken the child. The child’s father, Roland Peugeot, meticulously followed the kidnappers’ instructions – including a firm warning not to involve the police – and three days later he readily paid the 50 million francs2 ransom, which was followed by the safe return of his son. Bradley was shocked that the kidnappers had demanded such a paltry amount when clearly the Peugeot family had the capacity to pay far more. He felt that with his negotiating skills the amount would have been much larger. At the time of the article, the French police had failed to identify the kidnappers of Eric Peugeot.3

  The article got Bradley thinking: why should Bazil Thorne be entitled to keep the whole of the £100,000 entirely for himself? Stephen was sure that such a simpleton would have no idea how to invest or spend such a substantial sum of money. He would be utterly susceptible to pathetic requests from family and friends – even from strangers – seeking his support for charitable or benevolent causes, or for fantastic and imagined projects, or to pay for desperately needed medical procedures or pharmaceuticals. He was sure that Bazil would dissipate the full amount in less than twelve months. Stephen, on the other hand, knew exactly how to invest such a sum, and to make it grow into an even greater amount. Looked at logically, Stephen came to the view that he was just as entitled to such a windfall as anyone else – actually more so, because of what he had been forced to endure during his life so far. Just a small proportion of the money – say, £25,000 – would make his and Magda’s lives a lot less stressful, so that they could focus more time on their children and he and Magda could finally live the life they imagined and deserved.

  As disparate notions of inequity and entitlement coalesced in Stephen’s mind, a plan began to emerge, seemingly from a source beyond his consciousness – a plan so simple and remarkably free from risk to anyone that he was surprised nobody had already thought of it.4 The newspaper article about Bazil’s lottery win was accompanied by a photograph of his wife, Freda, and mentioned that they had three children: Cheryl, aged eleven, Graeme, aged eight, and Belinda, aged three. The article even listed their address at 79 Edward Street in the middle-class, seaside suburb of Bondi. Stephen found that he was increasingly preoccupied with the idea of carrying out a kidnapping for ransom of one of the Thorne children, who were around the same age as his and Magda’s. This gave Stephen the confidence that he could entice one of them to come with him, and that he could keep the child calm during the time it took to negotiate with Bazil and Freda Thorne. Stephen was so good with children that he could even make the incident trauma-free, so that the child would be unaware that anything untoward had occurred until being reunited with their parents. It would be almost like a game, with some real-life rewards for him at the end. Stephen was also sure that, as had happened in the Peugeot kidnapping, he could convince the parents not to involve the police while he had their child.

  Surely his possession of their child would be sufficient to convince them to hand over a
small part of their windfall in exchange for the child’s safe return. He could drive the youngster around, keeping him or her occupied with playful imaginative games, while the Thornes collected the money, and within a few hours he would make another phone call to tell them where to leave it. They would undoubtedly follow his instructions to the letter, whereupon he would pick up the money, release the child in a safe place and notify the parents where to find him or her. The child would be oblivious to what had happened behind the scenes, and Stephen would be £25,000 richer. Although he was aware that the parents would be distressed, it would only be for a short time as they were gathering the ransom together, and it would immediately dissipate when they were joyously reunited with their child after the money was paid.

  Within a few days, Stephen Bradley was resolute that he would carry out this venture, which would set him and Magda on a path to prosperity. He was convinced that he had all the characteristics necessary to accomplish it – attributes that most people lacked. He believed that he had the intelligence to carefully work through every detail of the plan, so that any risks could be anticipated and eliminated. Anyone else would probably do something stupid that would alert the child to danger, or give the parents a clue to their identity, or leave some evidence that the police would later be able to pursue. It was a magnificent idea and he was the ideal person to execute it. He delighted in the intellectual exercise of planning this unique venture, as it provided the kind of challenge and excitement that his mundane jobs had failed to offer him. For the first time in ages he felt that his true creative talents were being utilised. Whether at home or at work, his thoughts constantly drifted to the details of the plan. He would also spend countless hours imagining different ways to invest or spend the £25,000. Most of his musings involved the purchase of a grand new home and expensive cars, as well as trips overseas with Magda and possibly also the children. At a level deep within his psyche, he already had the money in his possession and it was his to spend as he wished. The thrill was like a drug of addiction.

  It was simple to locate the Thorne family’s modest downstairs flat in a two-storey duplex at 79 Edward Street, Bondi. The building was on the lower side of the street opposite a large park that stretched up a hill, making covert surveillance of their home an easy task. One morning, Stephen Bradley went to the park and settled down on the grass with a newspaper as disguise to observe the Thorne family’s morning rituals. He watched as Bazil left for work. A little later Graeme came out in his school uniform and walked up the street to a corner store, where he was picked up in a car by a woman with two young boys, whom he presumed were her sons. Later still, Freda appeared with her younger daughter on their way to the shops. It was clear that they were a typical, ordinary Australian family.

  Stephen’s attention was initially directed at the youngest of the Thorne children, Belinda, because at the age of only three she would be unable to provide the police with any meaningful information about her abductor. However, he soon realised that it would be very difficult to abduct such a young child because she was almost always in the company of an adult. After conducting surveillance several times, Stephen’s attention became focused on the Thornes’ middle child – eight-year-old Graeme Frederick Hilton Thorne. At his age, the boy would not be able to provide the police with any meaningful description of him. At no time did Stephen sight their oldest child, Cheryl, aged eleven, who would, in any event, be able to put up more of a fight.

  Before he could move ahead with his plan, however, Stephen needed to confirm the telephone number attached to the Thornes’ flat – a necessary detail, because without this Stephen would not be able to make the call to demand the ransom. The Thornes had only made arrangements to have the telephone connected after they learned of their lottery win, and although the handset had been installed and they had been allocated a phone number, the connection was not yet functional.

  Stephen looked up the telephone directory, but there was no entry for the Thornes’ home. So he rang a special enquiry number at the telephone exchange to investigate. These were the days when there was no such concept as the right to privacy, and information such as phone numbers and addresses was readily available to the public, and Stephen was easily able to obtain the number from the exchange operator. However, when he called the number to check, the call was unsuccessful.

  As the whole plan depended upon phone contact, Stephen realised that he had to find out why the number allocated to the Thornes’ family home was not connected and, if the information he had been given by the exchange was wrong, he had to find out the correct number. It was possible that Bazil and Freda had applied for a ‘silent number’ – not published in the annual phone book – to deal with the volume of requests they were receiving from people wanting to share in the bounty from their lottery win. He thought long and hard about how to overcome this hurdle, and considered it a serious test for a man with his all-round abilities. In a way he enjoyed such a challenge, as it stretched his resolve to accomplish the plan, and it felt so good when his mind miraculously came up with a solution. After much consideration he decided to take a bold, necessary step: he would go to the Thornes’ home and, using the clever ruse of posing as an investigator, would obtain their phone number.

  The story he devised was to pretend to be a private enquiry agent engaged in a divorce investigation and seeking to know the whereabouts of a previous resident of their block of flats. He had once spoken to a real private detective who worked for a local agency, and he had told him that when they were making enquiries about ‘new Australians’ – as all immigrants were then called – they had been instructed by the principal of the agency to use the excuse of looking for a man by the fictitious name of Bognor. Bradley decided that this was as good a cover story as any, and if necessary he could provide the name of a real detective agency as a subterfuge. Although this deviation from his original plan would mean that the members of the Thorne family would see his face and hear his voice and accent, Stephen was confident that a time lapse of several weeks before the kidnapping would ensure that their memories of the man who had made the enquiry at their door would dissipate or even disappear. He thought it unlikely that they would connect his enquiry with the later abduction and, in any event, even if they did remember his visit, they had no way of identifying him, as his plan did not call for any further face-to-face contact.

  On 14 June 1960 – twelve days after first seeing the newspaper article about Bazil Thorne – at about 7.30pm, when most families were cleaning up after dinner, Stephen Bradley arrived in Bondi and parked his car in an adjoining street. His heart was racing as he walked towards number 79 Edward Street. He hesitated as he got close enough to the block of flats to see that there were lights on and activity in both the downstairs and the upstairs flats. For a moment, he contemplated abandoning this preliminary step, and perhaps even the whole venture, but as soon as the thought had registered he dismissed it as a trick of the mind, and purposely rekindled his determination to press on. This stage of the plan was as much a test of his resolve as it was an exercise in information-gathering. While it did not commit him to pursuing the central part of the plot, and involved nothing illegal in itself – since he was merely using a pretence to obtain information – it was a means of assessing whether he would be able to carry through with the real plan when the time came. Mustering the strength of purpose that he knew he possessed, he walked down the steps to the Thornes’ front door and knocked loudly.

  Freda answered the door, and Stephen could see Bazil, seated in a chair, looking his way from a room deep inside the flat. They were both surprised by the unexpected intrusion into their family space at a time when most suburban families were cleaning up after dinner. Nobody they knew would unexpectedly come to their home at that time unless it was an emergency. Freda’s face told him that she thought he was a hawker trying to sell them something. Stephen gave her his most engaging smile and, in line with his plan, told her that he was looking for a Mr Bognor. S
he looked enquiringly at him and replied that the previous tenant had been a Mr Bailey and she had no knowledge of a Mr Bognor. Stephen looked down at his notebook and said, ‘Is the phone number at this flat 30-7113?’ Freda was surprised and immediately asked, ‘How did you get that number?’ He replied, ‘I have my ways and means of getting information. I’m a private enquiry agent and this is a husband-and-wife affair.’ Freda, having no knowledge of divorce disputes, looked even more quizzically at him, not knowing what ‘a husband-and-wife affair’ meant, and said, ‘That happens to be my telephone number and it has not even been connected yet.’ She then suggested that he go upstairs to consult with the tenant there, Mrs Dorothy Lord, who had been living in the building much longer than they had.

  Although Stephen had obtained the information he required, he felt the need to maintain his cover, in case Freda was still observing him, so he went upstairs and spoke to Mrs Lord. However, instead of saying that he was looking for a Mr Bognor, he decided to utilise the information he had garnered from Freda and told the woman upstairs that he was looking for a Mr Bailey. Mrs Lord told him that Mr Bailey had lived downstairs, but that she had no idea where he was living now.