Lethal Factor

by Gabrielle Lord

  ‘What about on the back roads?’ I asked.

  ‘There’s Dundas,’ he said. ‘But no one goes there much. There’s only a pub and a post office.’

  I arrived in the historic mining town of Dundas. It didn’t have enough to offer the tourist to have become chintzy. Apart from the nineteenth-century timber hotel, there was a craft shop selling the same stuff that all craft shops sell—large white mice wearing clothes, teddy bears in various shapes and sizes, bright coloured ceramic teapots, and pens and egg cups made out of eucalypt wood. It was shut and the goods in the window looked dusty.

  The publican was an ex-cop with a past and in less time than it took to finish my lemon, lime and bitters, I knew where Neil Stewart was to be found. For the first time, I felt the investigation was swinging round my way.

  Neil Stewart lived a mile down the road in a colonial nineteenth-century cottage, the sort that looks charming to drivers passing by, with vines and hundred-year-old roses climbing all over the roof and verandah. I parked a few hundred yards away and walked through the long grass until I came to a small clearing. The little house was probably about a hundred and fifty years old and was still standing—just. It was almost derelict and I nearly fell through the verandah when I stepped up onto it. I knocked and waited. I knocked again, a voice said something incomprehensible and finally the door was opened.

  ‘Neil Stewart?’ I asked.

  ‘What do you want?’ He opened the door and I could smell the acetone stench of a chronic drunk even before the puffy features and bloodshot sagging eyes told me their story. I showed him my ID and he stared at it for a while.

  ‘AFP scientist eh? Used to work in with you guys sometimes.’ He opened the door a little more. ‘I was in the job,’ he said. ‘New South Wales.’

  ‘I know you were,’ I said. ‘And so did I,’ I told him, ‘before I was a scientist.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘No problem for you,’ I said.

  ‘Come in then. Don’t mind the mess.’ There seemed to be a desperation burning in him. Maybe he was longing for some sort of human contact, although from the look of him, he was past that. There was only one thing he longed for these days, I thought, and that’s why he’d stuck himself out here, within walking distance of the local.

  I followed him inside and looked around. Neil Stewart was already living the life of a derelict. The hessian ceilings had once been whitewashed, but now they were a dark cloud, sagging under the weight of a century and a half. The floor was stacked with empty flagons and bottles in cartons, and stank of stale cigarettes and urine. A pit toilet out the back, no doubt, and a lot of pissing out the windows. Just off the main room was a tiny annexe where an ancient stove and a few cupboards above a dirty sink completed the facilities. But there was a bookcase and I noticed some of the classics, Plutarch’s Lives, Shakespeare, Plato and Machiavelli. I wondered if he’d been carrying them around for a lifetime waiting for the time to read them and now never would.

  ‘Take a seat if you can find one,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve had a chat to Toby Speed,’ I said.

  ‘That prick,’ he said. ‘Want a drink?’

  I shook my head. I looked around for somewhere to sit and Neil swept a pile of clothes on an armchair to the floor.

  ‘Toby Speed, eh? One of the liars from ASIO.’ He settled himself back at the small table with its one chair that formed his dining area and I guessed that was his usual perch beside a window on his left that filled the dingy room with harsh light. I heard something rustling in the ceiling. ‘That’s just the rats,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about them. Give me a rat any day.’

  I looked up. One day the sagging ceiling would collapse under the weight of a century of rat shit.

  ‘I’m investigating the murder of a woman,’ I said, ‘in a convent on the Heronvale Road. A nun.’

  Neil Stewart picked up the hand-rolled cigarette burning in an upturned lid and took a big suck on it. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Sister Gertrude.’

  ‘So you’ve been following the papers?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t bother with those much,’ he said. ‘And what did Toby Speed have to say about that?’

  ‘He wouldn’t tell me anything much. Gave me some bullshit about witches.’

  ‘Witches?’ Neil laughed. ‘He knew about Katica Babic and her father.’ He leaned forward a little. ‘You’re involved in the investigation into her murder?’

  I nodded

  ‘You’re surprised that I know about her?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  His demeanour had changed; his spirits had lifted. ‘I know why she died,’ he said. ‘I’m not talking about the cause of death. I mean, I know why she died.’

  I felt a surge of optimism. ‘Tell me,’ I said.

  Neil Stewart ignored the stump of cigarette burning in front of him and started rolling another one using a neat little contraption that looked like a sardine tin complete with key.

  ‘You really want to know?’ said Stewart.

  ‘I really want to know,’ I replied, watching him.

  ‘I came up here years ago,’ Neil said, ‘because I wanted to keep an eye on someone—someone connected to Josip Babic, the executioner of Sarajevo.’ He took a sip of something dark, evil and sticky from a middie glass on the table, before winding the key on the cigarette-making contraption and lifting out the neatly rolled cigarette it formed. ‘But I’m getting ahead of myself,’ he said.

  ‘I heard Babic was a patriot,’ I said. ‘A war hero.’

  Neil Stewart shrugged. ‘If the Germans had won the last world war,’ he said, ‘the same would have been said about Hitler and the rest of them. We had a different perspective.’ He leaned forward. ‘Josip Babic was a butcher—a war criminal. His daughter wouldn’t have died if she hadn’t been his daughter. Toby Speed was very helpful in making sure Babic and men like him slipped through the screening process after the war.’

  A bolt of electricity ran through me. Aunt Ksenia hadn’t liked her brother-in-law. Was it because she’d known this? I pulled out my notebook and started jotting down what Neil Stewart said.

  ‘No wonder Toby Speed wasn’t too keen to get involved again,’ I said.

  ‘Too right,’ said Neil. ‘Him and his superiors protected Babic and people like him. They used him.’ Neil Stewart glanced my way. ‘Can I get you a drink?’ he asked again.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m on duty.’

  He topped up his glass. ‘Never stopped me,’ he said, putting the carton of port down. ‘We nearly had Babic, you know,’ he said. ‘The brief was watertight. I had eye witnesses—even after all that time—who were prepared to testify in court that they’d seen him gun down youngsters and shoot men and women. I had photographs. We had more than enough to nail the bastard.’

  ‘Slow down,’ I said. ‘All I know is that you were involved in the Special Investigation Unit. You’ll have to start at the beginning.’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to do,’ he said. ‘The SIU was set up by the Hawke government in the 1980s. We looked into 800 suspected war criminals.’

  ‘What? Here in Australia?’ I was surprised at the number. ‘And one of those was Josip Babic?’

  ‘You bet,’ said Neil. ‘He not only compiled lists of the people to be hauled in front of his kangaroo courts in Sarajevo, he also participated very vigorously in the verdicts. There was only one sentence handed down in Joe Babic’s court.’

  I scribbled while he spoke.

  ‘We tracked witnesses,’ he continued. ‘We found death warrants with his name on them. We even found a photograph of him standing beside what turned out to be a mass grave in his Black Legion uniform.’

  ‘Black Legion?’ I asked.

  ‘It was a notorious killing unit in Yugoslavia during the Second Wo
rld War,’ said Neil, topping up his glass yet again. ‘Its members murdered Serbs, Jews and Gypsies. I was in Sarajevo fifteen years ago,’ he added. ‘I actually talked to old men who still remembered Josip Babic well from those days. Men who’d watched him kill their neighbours. And in some cases, their relatives.’

  Neil lurched out of his chair, scrabbled through the pile of papers on the lounge and grabbed a handful, thrusting them at me.

  ‘What’s this?’ I said, startled, taking them from him.

  He stood in front of me, his hair standing on end from being pressed up against the chair. He would have been an imposing figure once, tall and wide-shouldered. Now his clothes hung on his skinny wide frame and the skin on his face showed the burnt look of advanced alcoholism. It could have been me if I hadn’t stopped when I did, I thought, and felt real compassion for the man.

  ‘Have a look through what I’ve given you,’ he said. ‘It’s just rotting here, like me.’

  ‘What happened to your case against Babic after you charged him?’ I asked.

  ‘Our prosecution failed. I couldn’t believe how the judge just threw the case out. Simply because it was old.’ He fell silent, brooding over the cigarette stub in the ashtray. I saw then that he’d rolled yet another cigarette in the little machine.

  ‘We had some very good advice, too, about prosecuting another war criminal.’ He shot me a look. ‘The AFP sat on it and then turned it down. And then the money ran out. Too costly, they said. Old war criminals aren’t sexy. There’s no votes in justice.

  ‘Things like the fucking Olympic Games are never too costly. Fucking bread and circuses.’

  I looked at the papers in my hands. They were old-fashioned typescript with dates from the 1950s. ‘What are these?’ I asked again.

  ‘If you read through those letters and documents,’ he said, ‘you’ll see how a man who was first classified as a war criminal was cleaned up until he became a desirable migrant to Australia. You’ll see the names of the public servants who colluded in reclassifying him.’

  I scanned the old documents, puzzled.

  ‘The War Office Screening Mission,’ Stewart continued, ‘sorted people into those they wouldn’t touch with a barge pole and those that were supported in their immigration to new countries like Australia. Somehow, Babic went from classification “Black”—meaning he was known to have been party to war crimes, or a vigorous collaborator with the Nazis—through to “Grey”.’ Stewart tipped his hand from side to side as he spoke. ‘That meant they were a bit iffy—right over to “White”. Squeaky clean. Then the war hero bullshit.’

  I’d stopped taking notes and just sat there, staring at Neil Stewart. ‘Josip Babic was Black as Satan’s arsehole.’ He gestured to the papers in my hand. ‘Take ’em,’ he said. ‘They’re no bloody use to me. To anyone. Not now. Nobody gives a rat’s arse.’ He poured another drink and took a long swig. ‘Fuckin’ broke my heart,’ he said, ‘when that fucking judge threw the case out. I couldn’t believe it. And you should have seen the look on Babic’s face. I wanted to jump up and punch him. He was preening.’

  From my experience I knew it was depressing when a hard-won brief gets knocked out. And I’ve heard cops tell me how it was a certain case that did it for them, made them lose their heart, made them not bother anymore. Sometimes it’s a series of less serious cases. But usually there’s one heartbreaker. I looked at Neil Stewart slumped at the table.

  ‘But Babic is dead now,’ I said.

  ‘Died nice and cosy in his own little bed,’ said Neil. ‘He got away with it. Not beaten and raped or mutilated, or standing in front of a ditch waiting for a shot in the back of the head. If he was lucky.’

  Some people do seem to get away with it, I thought. I’d never believed in a higher court, although sometimes the idea was appealing. Like right now.

  I recalled something Neil had said earlier. ‘That’s why you said “ASIO liars”,’ I said.

  Neil grunted. ‘After the war, they recruited Nazis as intelligence agents. They never admitted it, but they did. Anything anti-communist was considered a good thing.’ He sank back in the chair. ‘And that meant Croatian patriots.’ He spat out the last word. ‘And war “heroes” like Josip Babic, the butcher of Sarajevo.’

  ‘So Sister Gertrude’s murder is related to her father’s past?’ I asked.

  Neil Stewart gave the merest shrug, eyes almost closed against the cigarette smoke curling around his face. ‘A lot of human beings were murdered by Babic and his gang. And if I know about her father, other people would, for sure.’ His eyes suddenly opened wide like a spooked horse. ‘I reckon someone knew who she was.’

  ‘But she was far too young to have been involved in the war,’ I said. ‘She was an innocent.’

  Neil’s laugh was bitter. ‘Since when has innocence been any defence?’

  He had a point. ‘There was a brother killed in 1972,’ I said, remembering the facts I’d put together. ‘And within a very short time, she went into the convent.’

  Neil Stewart looked into my eyes. His were red and bleary but the old investigator still lurked behind them. ‘Maybe she was making reparation,’ he suggested.

  In other times and circumstances, I could imagine myself working with this man. He had the knack. The capacity to imagine and play around with the pieces until he’d fitted them together.

  ‘But reparation for what?’ I asked.

  ‘Christ almighty,’ said Neil, ‘take your pick.’ He leaned forward, warming to his topic. ‘You’ve got to know a bit about the old Yugoslavia,’ he said. ‘The Croats are mostly Catholic—fiercely anti-commo, like Babic. Many of them were committed to the idea of an independent state. They didn’t see a future for themselves in Tito’s communist Yugoslavia.’ He swallowed the rest of the fortified wine. ‘War makes strange alliances and many Croats teamed up with the Nazis in the quisling Nazi state during the war. Tens of thousands of Serbs were murdered.’

  The history was coming back to me. ‘The Croats were Nazi collaborators?’ I asked.

  ‘They didn’t see it like that,’ said Neil. ‘It was their righteous struggle against the godless forces of Communism that would crush their religious freedom and national honour. Not to mention their dream of an independent state.’

  ‘Speed told me that Josip Babic was a soldier in the NDH—the Croatian army.’

  Neil nodded vigorously. ‘That’s right. And he was also a member of the Ustashe, the Croatian fascist movement. Some of their atrocities even sickened the Nazis.’

  It was a long time ago, I thought. ‘Does the name Jeremiah Dokic mean anything to you?’ I asked, coming back to the present.

  Neil shook his head. ‘Who’s he?’

  I told him about Jeremiah and his terror, his attempted suicide.

  ‘What’s he frightened of?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s a Serbian name,’ he said. ‘He might know something helpful.’ He paused, considering something. ‘When the Germans lost the war and their allies had to lay down their arms, too, the NDH surrendered to the Yugoslav army as prisoners of war. Too many Serbs saw this as payback time and tens of thousands of Croats were murdered at Bleiburg in Austria. Those not killed straightaway were forced into death marches and murdered along the way by Serb partisans. The Croats called it “Kryzni put”.’

  ‘The way of the Cross,’ I quoted.

  Neil Stewart looked impressed and I wished I’d found him right at the beginning of this investigation. I might have had a guide through this labyrinth a lot earlier.

  I sat there in the dingy room, mulling over what I’d just heard, trying to put it all together. But I wasn’t completely satisfied. Vengeance from somewhere over half a century ago just didn’t work for me. Murder is a young man’s business. The sort of killing I’d seen hadn’t been done by an old man in his eighties, I’d swear. I dre
w a line under my notes. This wasn’t going anywhere. My earlier sense of excitement faded. What Neil Stewart had told me was just background information.

  ‘But anyone involved in World War Two crimes,’ I said, ‘is either dead or very old by now. Sister Gertrude was only murdered a week ago. The motivation you’re suggesting is over sixty years old.’

  ‘Exactly! That’s the whole point!’ said Neil. ‘It’s not! It’s as fresh as today. Young Australian Croats trained and fought with the Croatian militia in Yugoslavia in the 1990s. They were part of units that carried out some of the worst mass murders of the war.’ The anger in his voice grew. ‘Don’t you get it? There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of young Australian men who went back just a few years ago to Sarajevo, to Kosovo, to Bosnia and other places in the old Yugoslavia and fought in their fathers’ battles—Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian. The old war criminals trained the next generation and handed it on, father to son.’

  I felt something constrict around my heart; this familiar family pattern.

  ‘These young Australians were party to atrocities on all sides,’ said Neil. ‘And it’s only a few years ago we’re talking about.’ He’d forgotten to pour another drink and his cigarette waved as he spoke, ash dropping.

  I scribbled again. ‘You’re saying it’s a generational thing,’ I said.

  Neil Stewart stared at me. ‘You’ve got it,’ he said.

  It had been there all the time, right in front of my eyes and I thought of Florence’s words and Charlie’s similar warning.

  ‘Blei Babic went back to Yugoslavia in the ’70s,’ Neil was saying, ‘and was killed during a fierce battle against government forces. Fighting his father’s old fight.’

  ‘Men like Babic in the ’40s,’ I said, ‘then his son Blei in the ’70s and then their sons in the ’90s.’

  Neil Stewart nodded. ‘This war just keeps on going,’ he said.

  All wars keep on going, I thought, and the memory of my father rose. It’s just that some are more obvious than others. Outside the dusty window, a crow scolded and noisy miners alarmed. ‘Sister Gertrude died because of something that happened in Croatia,’ I said.