Lambs to the Slaughter

by Debi Marshall

  First Constable Henry Huggins photographs the girl, grateful for the emotional distance that peering through a camera lens affords him. Body partially clothed. Click, click. Gaping wound, ear to ear. Click, click. A series of photographs that will make up the sad collage for court. We tender photographs 1 to 65, Your Honour. When the photography is done they cover this girl, Yvonne Elizabeth Tuohy, this twelve-year-old whose abduction the previous afternoon has been the subject of intensive police all-points bulletins throughout the evening. They wrap her gently in a plastic coverall, to afford her some small dignity.

  'Secure the site,' Knight demands. Soon, when Yvonne's body has been removed, the well-oiled police machine of forensics will move in to collect evidence, like a colony of worker ants.

  The detectives tramp back to the police car in silence, their faces grim set and their footfalls heavy and flat on the night air. Knight clears his throat and speaks to the thin young man in the back seat. 'From what you have shown us, you could be charged with a serious offence in this matter, so it is my duty to warn you now that you are not obliged to answer any further questions or make any statement unless you wish, but whatever you do say will be taken down in writing and may be given as evidence. Do you understand what I have said?'

  He nods.

  Knight stares at him, hard. 'Please speak when you answer the question. Do you understand what I have said?'

  'Yes, sir. I do.'

  2

  He has the urge again. The impulses. They increasingly overwhelm him lately, but today he has time to indulge his fantasies. It's Sunday and he is not rostered for work. He can drive around at his leisure. Weekends are perfect: a time when families relax and children frolic in parks, at the beach, or near their homes. He has had the entire weekend off work. Plenty of opportunity to watch and hunt and fantasise.

  He pulls his car over in a secluded spot, takes off his trousers and pulls on the men's underpants and women's knickers. Five pairs at once, then two pairs of plastic pants over the top. He gets dressed again and sits in the solitude of his vehicle, scribbling lewd, sadistic fantasies in his small, delicate handwriting. They are graphic, intricate fantasies detailing what he wants to do to children; what he wants them to do to each other. Young girls and boys, alone or together. Multiple children at the same time. Fantasising about their abduction, mutilation, dismemberment and death. About cutting, smearing, tying, torturing. All the intimate, savage details. Sitting in the solitude of his vehicle, scribbling his fantasies and defecating into his pants. He closes his eyes and breathes in the familiar, unpleasant smell of his own faeces. A warm, comforting trickle of urine swirls around his testicles and a hard, intense erection follows.

  His car is his castle. The one place, outside the constraints of his parents' home and the claustrophobic confines of the navy, where he can control his environment. The only place where he can write his fantasies and draw his sketches of children without fear of being disturbed, where he can dictate where he goes and when he can put on his plastic pants and masturbate. Here he can make as much mess as he likes, he does not take orders, and he has the power to do as he pleases. It's the one place where he can express the filth in his mind.

  He drives to Ski Beach, at the top of a tiny inlet north of Phillip and French islands that hugs the edge of Westernport Bay near Warneet. No one is around except a married couple walking on the beach, way ahead. Totally deserted, apart from the young boy and young girl who have just ambled past his car, oblivious to the fact he is sitting in the seclusion of his Datsun station wagon, watching them.

  What serendipitous, perfect timing. What a masterstroke of pure luck.

  Eleven-year-old Shane Spiller is carrying a haversack crammed with goodies for the hike to the beach. He has matches, a water canteen, food and sundry items. And he's packed his tomahawk, just in case. 'Just in case, what?' his friend Yvonne asked him when they headed off that morning. 'Just in case we might need it,' he shrugged.

  They headed off around 10.30 a.m., scuffling their feet and juggling the haversack as they sauntered behind Yvonne's house and down an overgrown back track to Ski Beach. They didn't see many people, but waved to Mrs Bowering in the car with her family and, soon after, to Mrs Banks. It's a small community.

  Shane loves to come with his family on weekends and holidays to their small house at Warneet. It beats the confines of their home at Armadale in Melbourne, surrounded by other houses and where the streets are clogged with traffic. In the past few months he has palled up with the Tuohy sisters – twelve-year-old Yvonne and fourteen-year-old Denise – who moved to Warneet with their seventeen-year-old sister, Maxine, and parents Francis and Nancy earlier in the year. Francis owns a boat hire business and the family often goes fishing.

  It is an innocent, carefree lifestyle here, three-quarters of an hour from Melbourne. The Tuohy girls are not mollycoddled or over-protected, but Nancy drives them to the school bus each morning and picks them up in the afternoon. They are respectful, polite to adults, speak when spoken to and know the rules about talking to strangers. In the holidays, they poke down crab holes, explore sand dunes and dip their toes in the chilly waters of Westernport Bay.

  Yvonne has spent this morning with her father at the boatshed and has been given permission to go to the beach with Shane. Yvonne is all right, Shane thinks. She's a tomboy, not scared of much and not into playing with silly dolls like some other girls he knows. They are good friends, and every chance they get they wander about the township and down to Ski Beach. They won't be testing the water today: though the sky is unblemished on this mid-winter's morning, the air is cool and crisp.

  With the innocence of childhood, Shane and Yvonne neither notice nor care about world affairs. They do not notice on the television the haunted faces of the tens of thousands of emaciated Biafrans starving to death through this winter of 1969, nor hear the rising chorus of hippy protest, fuelled by flower power and love-ins, loudly denouncing the west's involvement in the bloody Vietnam conflict. The 747's maiden flight is of little interest to them and the first in-vitro fertilisation of a human egg is only talked about in whispered tones by adults who seem not to fully approve of science interfering with nature. But today, for the first, momentous time – 20 July, 1969 – man has landed on the moon. The eagle has landed. And tomorrow, astronaut Neil Armstrong will take man's first walk on the moon, immortalising the moment in one simple sentence: 'That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.' Today's newspaper articles, side by side with advertisements featuring smiling women boasting that 'happiness is a dream kitchen' and advising registration for national service, trumpet that tomorrow almost all Victorian school students will watch the direct telecast of the moon walk. For once, Shane and Yvonne are excited about returning to their respective schools to watch this televised event during a specially convened assembly.

  It has taken them over an hour to get to the beach. Quiet and secluded at the clearing near the edge of the water, there is not a soul around except a man sitting in the driver's seat of his parked car and an empty green Falcon station wagon. Shane likes to boast that he knows a bit about cars: his Dad owns a Zephyr 1966 model and a Dodge truck; and he shoots a quick glance at the vehicle with the man in the driver's seat as they walk past. A creamy colour, with a pack rack on the roof. A station wagon but sort of little – maybe a Datsun or a Hillman, he reckons. A couple of rugs are on the back seat and there's a sticker on the body, about four inches round, with NAVY written clearly on it. The driver is looking ahead, but he turns and glances at them briefly. They keep walking, on towards the beach.

  Shane wants to turn right and urges Yvonne to follow him. 'Come on,' he tells her. 'Let's go this way.' But she doesn't want to. She is only tiny but also high-spirited and feisty. She stands her ground. 'No, Shane. I want to go the other way.' The tide is low. Shane keeps walking in the same direction but when he senses Yvonne is not following him, he turns and walks back towards her. She is facing Shane and suddenly the ma
n from the car is standing behind Yvonne, with one arm around her slender neck and shoulders, holding a knife at her throat. A red-handled knife; real, like Shane's tomahawk.

  Yvonne is straining against her captor, staring at Shane, silent, petrified, the blade of the knife teasing her neck. Propelled into action, Shane takes the tomahawk out of his belt and holds it above his head, threatening the man, as if he's going to throw it.

  'Put that down or I'll hurt the girl.' The man's voice is soft, oddly high-pitched, his eyes a nondescript blue. But there is something else about him, too. He has a calm detachment. He means business. He is hissing into Yvonne's ear, loud enough for Shane to hear. 'Tell your friend to come back here.'

  For the shortest moment – one, two seconds – Shane is riveted to the spot before he breaks into a sprint, running away from the man and back through the bush to get help. Yvonne's voice, choked with terror, rings out after him. 'Shane, Shane, help!' The man is dragging her along with him, following Shane for forty yards before he finally gives up the chase. Shane is still running, panting, running, panting and Yvonne's voice echoes after him, again. 'Shane, Shane, help! The man is going to cut my neck!'

  The Waldners, walking on the beach in the direction of Warneet, hear a child's voice cry out, five times in succession: 'Help! Shane! Help! Please! Help!' and they pause, looking back in the direction of the car park where they notice a flash of movement through the bush. The man shrugs, and they continue their walk. Now the cries have ceased.

  Shane sprints over the dense undergrowth, looking behind in case the man is still following him. His breath is coming in short, painful rasps. What if the man is ahead? What if he can see him running? He drops to his knees like an army commando and crawls along for a few metres before hauling himself back up to his feet again. In the distance he hears a car engine start and a vehicle speed away.

  The Payden family, driving to Warneet around 12.30 on this Sunday afternoon, pass a vehicle travelling at speed on the main road. The car catches their attention: not just for the speed it is going, but for the awkward position of its lone occupant, perched high in the driver's seat as though he is sitting on something.

  Shane is walking and running, walking and running, and is now back at Warneet's main road. He can't see the man's car, or anyone else. He stands in the middle of the road, his chest heaving from exertion for twenty, twenty-five seconds. Please, someone help he prays, jiggling on the balls of his feet until a car is approaching, finally. He waves it down with the tomahawk high in his right hand and spills out his story to the Payden family. 'A man jumped out of his car and grabbed my friend, Yvonne, with a knife,' he pants, his sentences falling out in a rush. 'He has taken her away.'

  Another car stops and the occupants give Shane a cup of tea to settle him down before he is taken back to Ski Beach to show them where Yvonne was last seen. The Waldners return from their walk and they have a brief conversation with Shane and the Payden family. The sun is shining and a fresh wind blows off the water. Yvonne and the man are nowhere to be seen. It is just a deserted beach, at low tide.

  3

  The Paydens drive Shane to the Tuohy household, notifying Yvonne's parents of the shocking news. At 1.10 p.m., Yvonne Tuohy's father, Francis, reports his daughter's abduction to Cranbourne Police, who in turn notify Division Twenty-Four (D24). 'A twelve-year-old girl has been abducted at knifepoint, Warneet. Please attend.'

  At 2.45 p.m. the Little family, on their drive home from a long trip, turn off the main road onto a track near Devon Meadows, 10 kilometres north of Warneet, to make some billy tea. Bill Little nudges his car into the clearing and backs up against the edge of the bush while his children gather twigs for the fire. He can hear voices a little way into the scrub – two distinct voices – and can see the tail end of a vehicle protruding around the bend, twenty yards away. He thinks the occupants are a courting couple wanting privacy and calls his children back to him. Ten minutes later, the car reverses out of the track at speed. He catches only a fleeting glimpse of the driver, and is curious about the absence of another occupant. But he notices the contents of the car's rear interior: something irregular in shape and completely covered with what looked like an eiderdown or quilt.

  Senior Constable Alan Hyde, in charge of Area Car Two at Melbourne's Brunswick police station, answers the radio alert at 3.40 p.m. Detectives Dineen, Gorringe and Thompson from Dandenong CIB take statements from Yvonne's distraught mother at the Tuohy house and erect roadblocks on exit points around Warneet while Shane, now with Francis Tuohy near the beach, waits at the roadside for the police to arrive. Francis draws on his military training to maintain composure; swaying from foot to foot is the only outward sign he shows of the gnawing fear in his gut. A cool, late afternoon sea breeze has begun to bite and the high tide leaves irregular white foam lines on the sand, like a delicate crochet pattern. Seagulls screech and wheel overhead, but there is no sign of Yvonne.

  Traumatised and shaken, Shane repeats his story to the police, words gushing with few pauses. His account of the man driving a vehicle with a NAVY sticker on its body has already propelled police into action. At 4.30, First Constable Malcolm Grant is dispatched by D24 to look for the vehicle. The logical place to start searching is at HMAS Cerberus, just 34 kilometres south-west of Warneet. Bill Little, distressed when he hears on the 5 o'clock news about the abduction of a young girl at Warneet, contacts police and describes how the vehicle in the scrub – a small, light-coloured Datsun station wagon – passed just a few feet from him but only appeared to have one occupant inside.

  At around 4.30 p.m., the Datsun station wagon pulls up at the gates of HMAS Cerberus. The driver gives a cursory nod to the sentry as he passes through the gate and parks – illegally – behind C Block. Sauntering into cabin CM-13, which he shares with three other men, Derek Percy leans in the doorway and strikes up an idle conversation.

  Des Stevens is sprawled on his bunk with a beer, watching Hunter on TV. He and a few others stepped ashore on Saturday, and while some went carousing in the city, Stevens came straight back. They never invite Percy to join them on their weekend runs and only share quarters with him because they have to. They reckon he's weird: quiet and bland, he doesn't drink or smoke and seems totally uninterested in chasing women. There's something a little awkward about him, too, a little unnerving, like he's preoccupied with weighty matters. He frequently materialises as if out of nowhere, a habit that has earned him the nickname 'Spook'. He has other nasty habits too, hawking and spitting regardless of where he is or who is around. 'Give it away, will ya? Ease up!' his cabin-mates complain, but he takes no notice. Now he's standing in the doorway, trying to chat. Stevens wishes he would piss off.

  'How was your weekend?' Percy asks Stevens, casually.

  'Good, mate. Good.' It's unusual for Percy to speak, let alone enquire as to someone else's welfare, but Stevens has had a few beers and isn't in the mood for small talk. He tries to ignore his cabin-mate, but still Percy loiters in the doorway, the blue dhoby bag that he brought ashore zippered closed at his feet.

  'I've been playing footy this morning,' he adds, as an afterthought.

  Stevens nods, distractedly, without turning his head. 'Good, mate. Good.'

  Percy has nothing much more to say now. He casually picks up his bag and announces that he is going to do his dhobying – a Hindu word for one who does the laundry, naval slang for washing. Stevens later recalls how inconsequential the conversation seemed, how calm his cabin mate's demeanour.

  Constable Malcolm Grant is dispatched from Mornington to search Cerberus for the vehicle, with the help of naval security staff. There are 200 cars on base today but within ten minutes they locate what they are looking for: a Datsun station wagon, NAVY sticker clearly visible, with New South Wales plates, registration EUU 786. There is also a 'Go Well, Go Shell!' sticker on the rear window. The car's exterior is clean, as though it has been recently washed, and the engine is still warm. The vehicle is locked but Grant takes a curso
ry look through the windows. The rear seat is folded down and an eiderdown covers a mattress.

  When Senior Constable Hyde arrives at Cerberus, he also looks at the car, before speaking to Lieutenant Commander Stanley Riley, the most senior officer on the base. Riley is insistent that everything is done by the book. From the moment he is informed that a naval rating may be involved in the Warneet abduction he hits the phones, advising top brass: the Minister for the Navy, the legal attaché and the Commissioner of Police. He is determined to keep them informed of all developments.

  'Given the gravity of the situation, sir, this is a matter of urgency,' Hyde reminds him. 'A young girl is missing. We need to find out who owns this vehicle.' They stand in the office while Leading Patrolman Max Irving searches naval records for the car's owner. Within one minute, he has the answer.

  The car belongs to a naval rating based at Cerberus. Rank: Ordinary Seaman. Service number: R66951. Date of birth: 15 September 1948. Name: Percy, Derek Ernest.

  4

  Patrolman Irving's voice is crisp and clear over the sound system that can be heard throughout the base. 'Ordinary Seaman Percy, report to gangway.' Lieutenant Commander Riley, medium height and build, stands with his back rigid and hands clasped as he waits for a response. Nothing. He checks his watch. It has been five minutes. He nods to Irving to repeat the pipe. 'Ordinary Seaman Percy, report to gangway.' They wait again. Still no response.

  Percy, freshly showered, is doing his dhobying, intently listening to a news report on a radio transistor with a bundle of wet washing in a basket at his feet. He turns quietly when Senior Constable Hyde, accompanied by other officers, walks into the laundry. 'Are you Derek Percy?' Hyde asks.