Queen Kat, Carmel and St Jude Get a Life

by Maureen McCarthy

  ‘Right. We ready?’ said the driver quietly, taking a deep drag on his smoke.

  ‘Yep. Let’s go,’ the other man answered. The car sped off, the siren blaring, the flashing blue light spinning around on top. Like a toy. I felt like one of those little plastic figures that kids collect. I’d been popped into this toy car and some hero would come by any moment and save me. The car roared up the sombre dark back street towards the glow of the city lights. At an intersection, waiting for the lights to change, I was filled with an incredible sense of all this not being quite real. Life had been put through a grinder and was coming out the other end completely skew-whiff.

  As we neared the city the young guy in the back quietened down. The car headed up Flinders Street past the railway station and I heard him clear his throat a couple of times. It was a cold night and not many people were on the streets. Even so, I lowered my head. People in nearby cars were all trying to peer at us. Or at least it felt like it.

  Then he spat at me. I felt the slimy globule hit my bare arm and cried out in alarm before I could even think. The policeman behind the wheel gave a furious snort and braked. The car screeched to a halt. The fact that we were in an outside lane in the middle of the city obviously didn’t matter. I flew forward, nearly hitting my head on the dashboard. Cars banked up behind us. No one tooted. The siren and the blue light had a power of their own.

  ‘Listen, you little poofter shit!’ the driver snarled, turning around to the back seat, his face contorted with anger. He grabbed the guy’s thin shirt, ripping it with his fingers. ‘You do one more thing like that and you’ll be very sorry. I promise you! You understand me?’ The policeman next to me had pulled a hanky from his pocket and was wiping the spit from my arm.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks. It’s okay,’ I managed to say, almost melting with gratitude for the kindness in his voice.

  ‘No, it’s not okay!’ The driver was still holding the guy by the shirt.

  ‘Did you hear me?’

  ‘Yeah,’ came a subdued mumble.

  ‘Good!’ The driver shoved him backwards and turned around to the wheel again.

  The longest night of my life had begun.

  I was hustled quickly from the car into a small, badly lit interview-room with just a couple of chairs, a desk, and a bare lino-covered floor. I was questioned for over an hour by two plain-clothes detectives – a man and a woman – before I was allowed to make a phone call. Neither of them believed my story and they made it very plain.

  ‘When can I make a phone call?’ I asked politely for the third time.

  ‘Soon,’ came the peevish reply. The woman interviewing me was cold and unimpressed with my refusal to admit the drugs were mine. Dressed as I was, it was hard to summon up my usual cool confidence. I think I was still in shock. Underneath I still believed it would only be a matter of time before they would realise their mistake. After all, I was speaking the truth. Everything would click back to normal soon, and then I’d be able to go home. No harm done. I was expecting them to apologise any minute for keeping me, and to offer to ring a taxi for me to get home. I was cold and tired and hungry. My bed in Canning Street was starting to seem unbelievably attractive.

  It has to finish soon. It just has to!

  But the questions continued. I alternated between blind panic, a terrible weariness, and boredom. I looked for reasons why they didn’t believe me. My clothes! If I was just allowed to change out of this ridiculous gear and get rid of the hair colouring I was sure they’d believe me. The uniformed officer sitting next to the two detectives was much nicer than the other two. He even brought me a coffee when I said my throat was parched.

  ‘Now, you say you had no drugs tonight?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And this . . . this friend asked you to mind them for him?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And what’s this friend’s name?’ I think this was the fifth time she’d asked the question.

  ‘I don’t want to tell you, because I don’t want to get him into trouble,’ I said.

  ‘Do you realise that to be carrying such material, especially in this quantity, is a very serious offence?’

  ‘Well . . .I guess I’ve never really thought about it,’ I said, knowing it sounded weak, but it was the truth.

  ‘You’ve never thought about the fact that these substances are illegal?’ she sneered.

  ‘Well, I guess I knew . . . I just never thought about it much.’

  ‘You never thought about it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you say you’re a student at Melbourne University?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Studying what?’

  ‘Arts/Law.’

  Her lip curled. And she began again.

  ‘At what stage did you get to the rave tonight?’

  ‘Who invited you?’

  ‘How did you get there?’

  ‘Whose car was it?’

  ‘Are you part of the gay scene?’

  ‘Why did you go then?’

  We were all exhausted. She raised her eyebrows at the uniformed guy taking the notes and yawned.

  ‘I’ve had it,’ she said and left the room without so much as looking at me. ‘Let her make a phone call now.’

  They brought in a phone. I breathed a sigh of relief. I would call Anton. He was a lawyer. Sort of anyway. He would know what to do, who to contact. The biggest dread at this stage was my parents finding out about any of it.

  ‘Anton. It’s me, Katerina.’

  I knew he had a phone by his bed and I knew it would take him a little time to register who I was.

  ‘Katerina!’ he said sleepily. ‘It’s 4.30 a.m. What’s wrong?’

  ‘I’m at Russell Street police station,’ I whispered. The uniformed officer was still in the room and I didn’t want him to overhear. ‘I think I’m in trouble.’

  ‘You’re where?’

  Anton arrived within about half an hour, dishevelled and still sleepy. I hugged him, half crying. I don’t think I’d ever been as pleased to see anyone. I was in the middle of filling him in with the details of the whole business when another older man strode into the room.

  ‘I’m Senior Detective Bowen,’ he said in this soft, clipped, strangely ominous voice. He sat down opposite us behind the table. He looked about fifty, was thin, and wore a well-cut, baggy suit. He had a moustache and very hard, glassy-blue eyes. He’d been holding a folder of notes. He stared across at us for a few unnerving moments before throwing the manila folder onto the desk.

  ‘Miss Armstrong, is it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, pushing my shoulders back.

  ‘I’ve read through this . . . crap.’ He slapped his hand onto the folder. ‘And I thought I’d better make a few things clear to you.’ I stared back into the cold eyes and began to shake. He was the first man I’d ever come across who was looking right at me but didn’t see me. Didn’t, even for a moment, take in the fact that I was young and beautiful. And innocent. I was just a cardboard cut-out. He wasn’t interested in me at all. Anton put his arm around my shoulders.

  ‘You have been feeding us a lot of bullshit, haven’t you?’ he went on coldly, very softly, still staring straight at me, refusing to acknowledge my shaking hands.

  ‘No, I.. . .’

  ‘As things stand, we will be charging you with drug trafficking,’ he said, raising his voice a little. Anton had been sitting quietly, but now he looked up, about to protest. But the detective held up his hand, indicating that he wanted to continue. ‘I hope you understand that it’s a very serious charge. You have admitted that you have taken such drugs as we found in your possession in the past and that you have on occasion sold them on to your friends. Tonight we found you at an illegal venue with fifteen tablets in your bag. This doesn’t look good for you at all, Miss Armstrong.’

  ‘But that’s . . . not. I don’t sell them!’ Anton nudged me to be quiet. The man opened the fo
lder and read down the page. ‘You said you sometimes have sold a tab on to friends if they needed some?’

  ‘Yes, but that’s not . . .’ My voice petered out. ‘Only in the way I might sell a pen or a lipstick or something if I’d paid for it and didn’t want it any more . . . more often I’ve given them away.’ Oh shit! I’m getting in deeper by the minute. He dismissed me with a shrug.

  ‘Should you be found guilty of this charge – and the case against you is very strong – then a conviction will be recorded against your name.’ He leant forward and continued very gravely. ‘I want you to understand, Miss Armstrong, that when this happens, apart from a possible gaol term, you will never be allowed to practise law in this country.’ My mouth fell open in outrage.

  ‘But how could I.. . . I didn’t know that . . .I.. . .’

  ‘I’ll just make that clear again, Miss Armstrong,’ he continued relentlessly. ‘Apart from a hefty fine, this may also get you some months in gaol. And you will have completely ruined your future career!’

  The bastard! He sat back smug and cold to let it sink in, tapping his slim fingers on the desk.

  I stared at him, feeling that same sense of warped reality that I’d experienced earlier in the police car. Instead of things becoming clearer, I was getting deeper and deeper into this morass. Anton was frowning.

  ‘Would there be any circumstances in which the charge could be changed to one of possession, Detective?’ he asked. Anton always managed the right tone, intelligent and respectful, but not cloying. The man moved his eyes from me over to Anton.

  ‘Miss Armstrong has no prior convictions,’ the detective began carefully, still tapping his fingers on the table, ‘and this number of pills could, just possibly, be seen as possession. However, she has not cooperated with us at all over the last few hours. So unless things change we will submit a very formal case against her. By that I mean that we will charge her with trafficking . . .F ifteen pills after all are a lot for one person. It is certainly enough to warrant a trafficking charge.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I broke in. ‘I’ve cooperated! I’ve told the truth.’

  ‘Miss Armstrong.’ His eyes were boring into me. ‘You say you were supplied these drugs by a friend. We need to know his name. We need to know who supplies him. We need to know everything you know about this source.’

  It took a few seconds to register.

  ‘But he’s my friend,’ I burst out. ‘I can’t give him away!’

  BUT THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I DID DO. TO save my own future I gave Jules away. The one guy who’d been a real friend to me all year. Of course it took a while. I had to be talked into it. First by the detective, and then, more subtly, by Anton.

  After the detective sussed out that Anton was basically sympathetic to the idea, we were left alone to talk. I know Anton had my future at heart. He had no real concern with Jules. Nor any idea of the closeness of our friendship.

  ‘Katerina, this guy disappeared when he smelt the raid,’ Anton argued. ‘Are you going to put your future on the line for someone who did that?’

  ‘I don’t know for sure that he did that, Anton. He was there one minute and then he just sort of disappeared. I don’t know where he is.’

  ‘He disappeared,’ Anton repeated quietly. ‘Knowing you were carrying his stuff!’

  I nodded. But I was way beyond working out whether I agreed with this scenario or not. All I knew was that I didn’t want to give Jules’s name to the detective.

  ‘If I give his name, they’ll arrest him,’ I said slowly. ‘And he wouldn’t cope with gaol . . .’ I shuddered, thinking of Jules in any kind of rough environment. Anton shrugged.

  ‘I’m interested in what’s going to happen to you,’ he said. ‘Trafficking is a very serious offence. You probably won’t go to gaol because it’s your first offence, but it will certainly ruin your future in the law . . . And they weren’t your drugs. You mustn’t wreck your own future because of some misguided sense of loyalty.’

  ‘They weren’t my drugs, that’s true.’ I was desperate to see it his way. At the same time I hated myself for being so eager. ‘That’s right,’ Anton said firmly.

  ‘But they could have been,’ I said in a small voice. ‘Easily could have been mine. I’ve often bought that amount and sold them on to Kara or whoever.’ Anton winced and frowned. I wondered briefly if he was wincing about the drugs or at the mention of Kara.

  ‘But they weren’t yours this time,’ he insisted again.

  ‘That’s right.’

  Anton explained the deal that the detective was offering. In exchange for Jules, my trafficking charge would be changed to the less serious one of possession. I would have to face court, but if I pleaded guilty I would only have to pay a fine. And with a bit of luck and work on the police’s part a conviction need not be recorded against me.

  I protested and cried. Then I did it. I told the detective everything I knew about Jules. About the three Romanians who made the stuff in a little makeshift factory out the back of a suburban house in Glenroy. About their fourth member who bashed anyone who didn’t pay up. I even remembered the name of the street. Jules hadn’t told me, but I’d seen it on a bit of paper in one of his pockets. It was surprising how much I did know once I got down to it.

  At six o’clock the Bail Justice was called in. An immaculately groomed woman in her mid-thirties set up a tiny courtroom in the interview-room. If I hadn’t been at the centre of the drama, I would have found it funny. She stood formally behind a small table that had been brought in specially, and in front of the two detectives, a couple of policemen, Anton and me, she ran a short, formal court case.

  ‘With the power that has been vested in me by the state . . .I hereby call on Constable Nick Barkley.’

  ‘Present, madam.’ The policeman who had found the pills on me stood up.

  ‘And Detective Bowen.’

  ‘Present, madam.’

  ‘And Katerina Anne Armstrong.’ Anton gave me a nudge and I stood up too.

  ‘May we hear the facts concerning this case, Constable?’

  ‘Certainly, madam.’

  ‘From the beginning then . . .’

  Within an hour I was free to go. Bail had been set at five thousand dollars. Anton organised the money. I was to appear in court in two months on a charge of possession of drugs, to be changed at police discretion to one of trafficking, should more evidence come to light. I guessed this was their way of maintaining their hold over me. If I went back on the evidence I’d supplied about Jules, or had merely fabricated it, then they’d be able to get back at me.

  When Anton and I finally walked out the front door of the station, the sun was rising, a glorious pink glow settling over the city streets. It felt like the first morning that had ever broken. Inside I was lost, bereft. For the first time in my life I hated who I was. But the air against my skin was invigorating. The weariness left me for a few moments and I felt as if I could have run a mile. I wanted to run, to get away from everything. Myself most of all. Anton took my hand, led me back to his car and drove me back to his place in silence. I had a quick shower and then settled into the big bed in his front room. A piece of heavy cardboard was taped over the broken window. Anton brought in a warm cup of cocoa and sat on the bed while I drank it.

  ‘We’ll talk about all this when you’ve had a sleep,’ he smiled.

  ‘What about you,’ I protested weakly. ‘Don’t you need to sleep?’

  ‘I’m going around to your place,’ he said grimly, ‘to find Carmel. I haven’t seen her in two days. How come no one ever answers the phone around there?’

  I shrugged. I hadn’t seen her either.

  ‘You think everything will turn out okay, Anton?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, without a moment’s hesitation. ‘Of course it will.’

  ‘I feel bad about Jules,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t,’ Anton said. ‘He’s not worth it. Just go to sleep. I’ll be out in the kitchen when you wake up.’


  I got up about midday and showered again, this time washing all the colouring out of my hair. Feeling much better and more like my old self I walked down to the kitchen in Anton’s dressing-gown. Anton was where he said he’d be, at the table reading the paper. He looked up at me and smiled uneasily.

  ‘I’m afraid the press have got hold of it,’ he said. I stared at the two pages he was holding up. The headlines POLICE RAID GAY DANCE and POLICE CHIEF SAYS GAY YOUTH SCENE RIFE WITH DRUGS blazed out at me over a series of pictures. Snapshots from the night before: a dozen young men facing the wall dressed only in their underpants; a tall, thin guy, his face obscured, being led off in handcuffs. There were pictures of police wielding batons outside one of the entrances, and groups of startled-looking patrons staring blindly at the camera. Anton pointed at one of the smaller group photos and I bent and looked closer. There I was in my stupid little skirt and divided hair in the middle of a crowd on the footpath waiting to get into the police car. I flopped into a chair next to Anton and sank my face onto my arms.

  ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘You’re not recognisable.’ I nodded, but somehow it didn’t make much difference. In the photo my face was half blacked out and the bizarre costume and make-up would have made it hard for anyone to recognise me.

  ‘Really, Katerina,’ he went on encouragingly. ‘You’d have to look very hard to tell that it was you.’

  ‘I can’t remember anyone taking photographs,’ I whispered. Anton sighed.

  ‘They were obviously alerted.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The press. They must have been tipped off.’

  ‘Oh God!’

  We scanned the columns of print for any further identifying information. But the article itself was mainly focused on spokespeople from the gay community who were describing the search as brutal harassment and suggesting an independent inquiry. And that view, of course, was countered by the police response, which was that all rules had been strictly observed. At the end of the article it said that various charges had been laid against a number of young people and that police had not yet released names.