The detective became my only lifeline to the outside world, as the girls in the boarding house increasingly withdrew from me. My room-mate disappeared without fanfare, shifted to another room no doubt. She and her things just weren’t there one day when I woke up. I’d stopped taking notice of who was or wasn’t in the kitchen or bathroom when I got up to use them, and the names of all the girls and even the manager deserted me.
But the detective came by and was always kindly and courteous. I even stopped getting up when the manager told me he was at the door. He would come into my room and, if it was daytime, pull back the curtains letting in the light and fresh air. He’d talk to me, tell me details of the inquiry, even when I didn’t respond, even when tears streamed from my eyes, soaking the pillow. Everything seemed such a blur.
One evening, he came in and was a little more animated than usual. I became panicky even before he spoke. He was now hot on the trail of the culprits, he said. He had identified them from sources he had on the street, and within the next few days I’d be called in to make the formal identifications.
My stomach turned over and I was swept by fear. For the first time, he patted my shoulder and tried to comfort me. I had agreed to stay in Brisbane because I’d thought they wouldn’t be found. Now, the notion that something, anything, was required of me, over and above living with the pain, was itself distressing. Even more profound and terrifying was the thought that I’d have to look at the faces of the animals who had attacked me, who had reduced my life to nothing. Those who had shaken the foundations of my belief in the intrinsic good nature of the world so that it had crumbled forever. Now I believed that only pure evil existed and I wanted no part of it.
The detective and his partner came for me. The manager had helped me to recognise the day and be prepared to go with them. I was dressed, but in my mind, I wasn’t ready. We went in an unmarked police car, the detective in the passenger seat in the front, the other driving, and me in the back. We drove for a while, then parked in an ordinary street. The detective told me that inside the tall fence near where we were waiting was a factory, and that when a siren sounded the workers would come out through a nearby gate. I was to indicate if I saw anyone I recognised. I’d suppressed so much about that night that I was worried whether my mind still held any images of any of the men involved in it. I shouldn’t have worried. Eventually, a small flood of workers surged through the gateway. I saw none of them but for the tall fair-haired man who had told me to hold out my hands.
‘That’s him,’ I whispered. My voice had become dry and scratchy. I watched him walking away and thought the detectives hadn’t heard me. ‘That’s the one, the one who’s wearing—’
‘Yes. We know. A one hundred percent identification. Good. Very good.’
I began to really panic now as he was disappearing along the street while we still sat comfortably in the car. I feared that we would lose him.
The detective turned to me. ‘Don’t worry. We know where he lives, in fact we know everything about him now. We’ll pick him up when we’re ready. He’s not about to get away.’
Over the next few days I was taken to various locations and line-ups. I surprised myself by being unable to describe people in any detail but then being able to identify them immediately when I saw them. The tally of identified suspects reached four.
Then the detective came for me again, this time, he said, with good news and bad news. The bad news was that, apart from the four who had been in the car with me, the police were having trouble making cases against the men who’d been in the other cars, one of whom was the last man I’d identified. He said that while I could place him at the crime scene as a face in the crowd, and he admitted to having been there, he denied taking any part in the assault or attack on me. And, he said, at least one carload of the men involved were from New South Wales and were not known personally by anyone police had questioned. He was sorry that their inquiries couldn’t extend beyond the border. He didn’t have enough information about these men to pass on to the Sydney police to follow up and make arrests. Through their inquiries the police had determined that eighteen, possibly even twenty, men had been present in some capacity at the shed that night, but the likelihood of them all, even the guilty ones, being brought to justice was remote.
My heart plummeted. But the good news, he continued, was that their main quarry, who had beaten and kicked me in the face hoping to kill me, had been found. I was to accompany them to the city lock-up for an identification line-up. This man was already in police custody on another matter.
We travelled in silence, with a policeman I hadn’t seen before at the wheel. The detective, unaware of how much it would upset me, said he wished that the crimes had occurred two weeks earlier as, by law, I’d have been still under-age and the crime would have attracted a longer penalty. I was devastated. How, I thought, could anyone wish that I’d had two weeks less of peace and innocence? And particularly, how could he, this policeman whom I regarded as my saviour, have thought such an awful thing?
By the time we reached the lock-up I was overwrought with anxiety about what lay ahead. What if I couldn’t identify the culprit? Could I have forgotten those evil eyes, that sneering face? Would he look different, perhaps have grown a beard or cut his hair differently, and I’d be unable to recognise him. I had to be helped from the car and given a steady arm to hang onto in order to make it inside the door. I recall only a courtyard where the police car was parked and the vague impression of some sort of huge solid brick or cement building. Immediately inside the door was a counter, with no furniture on the side we stood on. I was left leaning against the counter while the detectives went away to ensure the line-up was ready.
When the detective returned, he drew me aside to inform me of the process. ‘When you walk in,’ he said, ‘there will be a line of men. You are to walk along the line and look at each man. On your way back along the line, you’re to place your hand on the shoulder of any man you recognise and say, “this is the man”.’
From somewhere, probably films, I’d had the idea that I was going to be able to make the identification from behind a screen, or that, having walked along the line-up, we’d all go back outside and I’d say, ‘He was the fourth person from the end’. Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined that I’d have to touch the person. I began to weep.
The detective waited for me to get over it, to summon up some inner strength and begin the sickening task. He said we had all the time in the world, but that the sooner I did it, the sooner it would be behind me. In a few minutes I nodded. ‘Okay, I’m ready.’
When I stepped through the door, I saw him and only him. My legs were shaking and I was anxious to get it over. I began to walk directly to him, and was stopped by a word from the detective as he repeated his earlier advice that I was to start at the beginning of the line. Looking at these men was a waste of time, and they got a scant glance from me. When I was nearing ‘him’ I was aware of him staring at me, his eyes again slitted and evil, his malevolence filling the room. I again forgot the instructions to pass by him and go to the end of the line, and instead I turned quickly towards the detectives and said, ‘This is the man.’ A quick head shake reminded me that this wasn’t sufficient. I had to place my hand on the man’s shoulder. I looked around to ensure that the police and warders were nearby to save me, as I had to go close enough to touch him and therefore close enough for him to grab me by the throat.
My heart stopped beating when I stood in front of him and put my right hand out towards his shoulder. His stare unnerved me. Then I turned quickly. Behind me, I heard a fumbled rush as the warders closed in on him. I kept walking, not looking back. I was out the door of that room, through the office and into the carpark before the detective caught up with me, grabbed my arm and gently drew me back. I had to sign something before I could leave.
Although I knew that the man was behind bars, I seemed to become worse. This had nothing to do with him, I felt, as he didn’t enter
my consciousness again once I’d walked away from the police station. I lapsed back into the grey world in which day and night were indistinguishable, and I rarely woke, even to eat.
A few days later, the detective visited in the evening and he was, to say the least, distressed. He made me get up and change out of my pyjamas because he wanted to talk to me outside. We went to sit in his car. He produced a hamburger he’d brought for me, perhaps to soften the blow or to have me engaged in doing something while he talked.
The man I’d just identified was out on bail. I choked. It was an administrative mistake, he said, and there were now fears for my safety. The man had been in the lock-up on other charges, including one of shooting at a policeman, and police had thought those charges were serious enough to keep him confined. The additional charges that had been laid against him had passed through the system too slowly, and he’d appeared before a magistrate only on the other charge—and had been given bail.
There was more. He was a known offender, a criminal with no respect for life, who’d already spent time in prison. The detective patiently explained that the man would know I was to be the main witness against him on a charge that would probably put him back inside for life. The chances of him coming after me were great. The detective asked me if this man could know where I lived through any of his acquaintances?
I didn’t know who he knew, but the answer as far as I was concerned was no. I hadn’t stayed in touch with anyone from the Chermside house, even if he knew the people who lived there, which I doubted. I didn’t have any friends. It was highly unlikely he’d know any of the women who lived in the boarding house. Nevertheless, the detective said, we had to start taking precautions. He got out and scouted around the front of the boarding house while I sat in the car and watched him. He disappeared up the side path, examining the windows and testing the strength of all the external doors.
He spoke to the manager, and when he returned he had a key to the front door. He was going to personally come by at odd times during the night to check on me, and he wanted to be able to silently move in and out of the house. I was not to go out onto the street. The manager or other girls would bring in anything I wanted in the way of food.
I returned to my room. My inability to take on everything that was happening exhausted me, and I lay down to go to sleep. Tension, however, prevented me from drifting back into unconsciousness. Feelings of worthlessness overwhelmed me again and I thought I’d be better off dead. I got up and opened the curtains wide so that if the madman came he could find me. I thought I’d sleep with the light on so that he could see me through the window.
I woke up later with a start when my bedroom door swung open and the detective was standing there with a torch in his hand, a torch which he didn’t need because the overhead light was still blazing. He looked at the curtains and rushed over to close them. He stared at my face, tear-stained from crying in my sleep, and saw through me. He sat on the edge of the bed and patted my hand. ‘You don’t want to die,’ he said, and I knew he’d been reading my mind. ‘We’ve come too far for that, and we’re too close to the end. When these men go to jail, you’ll feel better, I promise. You can’t die now, you’d be letting me down. We’re in this together now.’
He gave me a peptalk, reminding me how he’d been the only one to believe in me, and calling on me to believe in him now. He would see me through this, he said, we were a team.
I didn’t feel like a team, and he could see his talk wasn’t getting the response from me which he’d hoped for. He told me to get up, have a shower and get dressed, he was taking me out to ride around with him. He’d wait outside in the car.
Obedience was about the only thing I had left, and I felt relieved of having to make any decisions as I showered and dressed. I sat in the back seat as the detective and his driver made their calls, drove through city streets and watched who was leaving which nightclubs and with whom, and listened to the scratchy voice which squawked intermittently from the police radio. When I became tired of peering through the window, I lay across the seat and slept.
Riding with them at night, and sometimes even during the day, became a regular pattern. I began to regard the back seat of their car as my own space. There was tremendous security in knowing that two men were just a few feet from me, alert and ready to protect me from any danger, should it arise. They knew the criminal by sight, and I was sure they would see him before he had a chance to see me, so I slept easy.
One evening at the boarding house, I woke up with a start and realised I hadn’t heard from the detective and I panicked. I decided I had to go outside and look for him myself, perhaps he had forgotten me. I took the camping knife and sheath which I’d had ever since my days at the YWCA group in Townsville, just in case I needed to protect myself.
The detective had never taken me to the station from which he worked. So, when I walked down to the only police station that I knew the location of, I suddenly realised that it may not have been where he operated from at all. The streets were full of people, and it occurred to me that it was Friday night. Suddenly I had a deep longing to see Josie, to share what had been happening to me with someone with whom I’d already shared a great deal. I imagined that if she was in Brisbane she’d be dancing at the Railway Institute, and, though it was a fair way, if I walked quickly I could be there in no time at all. I set off.
Having a purpose gave me a determination, but my paranoia was raging. I shifted my knife to where I could pull it out quickly, and practised pulling it out each time I found myself walking in a dark street or along a deserted block. By the time I arrived at the small city park which many people walked through on their way to the Institute, I was tired and seeing movement in shadows even when there was none.
I stood at the entrance to the park and gazed up the dark pathway, staring into the trees and bushes which grew along its border. I waited until several little groups and couples had walked in and out of it, then when the path was completely empty I made my move.
I was about a third of the way along the path when I saw him. He was walking alone, carrying something clutched to his chest, and coming towards me. Even though he was still quite a distance from me, I recognised him. Panic rose up in my throat. I had brazened it out with him once before, when I’d identified him at the line-up, and I could do it again now, I knew I could. This time the odds were more in my favour. He couldn’t know where I was headed and therefore he didn’t know it was me. More than that, I had my knife.
He must be wearing rubber soled shoes, I thought, because I don’t hear his footsteps. He is almost upon me, get ready, ease the knife out from the sheath. There he is now! I raised the knife and plunged it into his side. The knife moved in smoothly, and I drew it out again. See, it was easy. Keep walking, don’t look around to see his startled face, his grin and sneer floating off in the air.
When I reached the end of the path, I paused and looked back. A group of people were walking towards the body on the path, chattering and laughing. One of the men in the group broke away and ran towards the lump he saw ahead. I wanted to scream out that perhaps he wasn’t dead, to be careful. Suddenly the air was filled with a scream from one of the women in the group. My feet were rooted to the path. Another man yelled out, ‘Hey, you! Come back here.’ At last, an order for me to obey. I moved towards them, hastily pushing the knife back into its sheath because it was obvious I didn’t need it anymore. I was safe.
They told me to sit on the grass while we waited for the ambulance and police to arrive. When they saw me up close, they seemed to have decided I was a witness. It didn’t occur to them that it was I who had stabbed this evil man.
Some police officers must have been nearby, because in no time at all uniformed officers were everywhere. I continued to sit on the grass, my knees drawn up beneath me, staring up at the wonderfully clear stars shining in the sky. Hubbub went on around me, I could hear people from the group giving their versions of how they had stumbled across the man lying o
n the path. More people had flocked into the park from the Institute and the streets, and I could feel them surveying the scene, trying to guess what had transpired.
At last an officer squatted down on his haunches beside me and asked, ‘What did you see?’ I looked at him and saw his expression turn from one of inquiry to surprise, and I realised then that tears were streaming down my face. When I didn’t answer his question but just kept gazing at him, wondering how he didn’t know it was me—me who was guilty now, me who had done it, he asked me, ‘What’s your name?’
‘Roberta Patterson.’ He stood up, took a notebook out of his top pocket, scribbled something in the dark and walked away. The police began to form little groups and look towards me. Between their legs I saw that the man on the path had been pulled into a sitting position. They must be getting him up to dump him on the trolley and trundle him off to the morgue, I thought, and I looked up again at the beckoning stars.
I was shaken to hear a familiar voice beside me. It was the detective, who had abandoned me by not coming to get me tonight to let me ride around in his car and be safe. He put his hand under my arm and helped me up. I was surprised when he put his arm protectively around my shoulders. Somehow I’d thought he’d be angry with me.
I whispered to him, ‘I got him. I got him before he got me.’
He said, ‘I know. Come, let’s go and look at him.’ He moved police and ambulance officers out of our way, and drew me into the middle of the circle. As we got near I was shocked to hear the ‘dead’ man talking, to see him moving his shoulders and turning his head. We approached him from the back, and already a wave of apprehension was sweeping over me. In the lights from the torches held by the officers I could see that there was something different, different hair, different hair colour maybe, there was something wrong here. The back of his head was the wrong shape. My feet stopped moving but the detective still held on, pushing and guiding me around to show me the man’s face. When he looked up at the sudden hush and our approach, I already knew the face I was going to see was not the one I expected to see. I had stabbed the wrong man.
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