I ask if they have investigated a particular individual, whom I name. 'No comment,' he says. 'You'll have to talk to Dave Caporn about that.' Caporn. I am starting to feel as if I am shadow boxing with a silent partner, a phantom. He concedes the individual I have named is known as a character in Perth, that he is a possibility. But he wants to return to discussing miscarriage of justice cases in Western Australia; he can't understand their relevance to the Claremont story. I can't understand why he needs to even query why.
'Because,' I remind him, 'people are scared. If police can get it wrong in other cases – and there is no doubt they have – what does that say about how they have handled Claremont?'
We discuss Bradley James Murdoch, now serving time for Peter Falconio's murder and the abduction and assault of Falconio's girlfriend, Joanne Lees. 'He's someone we are now looking at, trying to work out where he was at particular times.'
'He was in jail for one of them, wasn't he?' There is a long pause. 'It was a question,' I prompt. Another long pause.
'Yes, records show that he was. But we need to check that that was the case.'
'Do you mean he could have had early release?'
'We want to prove there was no discrepancy in the recording process.'
Murdoch had spent time in Claremont as a child. When he was nine years old, his brother died of a brain tumour. He became a Gypsy Joker bikie member but was in prison between November 1995 and February 1997. Unless the prison records are wrong, that makes it impossible for Murdoch to have abducted Sarah Spiers in January 1996 and impossible to have taken Jane Rimmer in June the same year. He is a possibility only, perhaps, for Ciara Glennon in 1997.
'Is it likely,' I ask, 'that these girls would have willingly got in with Murdoch? His car was spotless, but he's hardly the classiest man around. Sure he knew Claremont, but what are the chances, really? Can people really change their pattern?'
'It's highly unlikely, I'd say. But you sound more sure of things than we are.' He has adopted a mocking tone, the one police often use to put a curious journalist back in her place. His sunglasses now rest on his forehead and his eyes have a flinty expression. He looks hard at me. 'I'm not sure of any-thing,' he says. 'But I do know this. The public is lucky that the final siren hasn't been blown on this case years ago. And I know this, too: that anything is possible. Given the right set of circumstances, anyone will do anything. Anything at all.'
73
We come upon it, suddenly, a white cross on the verge of this overgrown rural track. No lilies now in the scorching heat of this summer day, but trees that grow wild, their branches entangled as if united in prayer. A freight railway line is close, rusted iron sheeting abandoned on nearby slips and horses graze in paddocks high with brambles. Woolcoot Road at Wellard is still and quiet, even in the prime of the day. Still and quiet, even as the softest breeze whispers that we should step carefully, here in front of the cross that marks Jane Rimmer's disposal site.
I close my eyes and try to imagine what had happened ten years earlier. A car creeping along this track under cover of darkness and crawling to a halt, just here. The driver checking there are no signs of headlights from an approaching vehicle, no one watching his furtive movements as he drags Jane's lifeless body out of the vehicle and down into this lonely verge. He would be hurried, perhaps now slightly panicked, as he covers her with light foliage. Bidding farewell to his quarry – what would he say? – before he scrambles back into his car and drives away, his dreadful night's work done. It is obscene to imagine that the Rimmers' beloved daughter and adored sister was picked up and tossed away like human trash, used as a macabre toy for her killer. This awful place doesn't fit the smiling young woman whose photos adorn laminate surfaces in her family home, whose spirit lingers over all her parents' conversations.
A decade on, there is still little here but brambles, a dirt road and the overwhelming sense that here was visited an obscenity. The police car turns slowly at the end of the road, returning to drive once more past her site. I look back through the rear window and imagine that the trees, swaying in the slight breeze, seem to be waving me goodbye. And the haunting words of Mary Frye's bereavement poem suddenly come to me:
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.
The highway leading to Eglinton is ringed with houses now, but it wasn't always so. In 1997, when Ciara Glennon was in the vehicle in which she travelled to this place, it was a long, lonely stretch of emptiness. To travel through the city traffic from Claremont, stop at red lights, cruise through the suburbs and head out to the bush, would then have been a one-hour drive. A high-risk drive, with a young woman in the car who was either scared for her life, or already dead. One mistake and a police car could have pulled the driver over. Just one error of judgement, the smallest slip. Or was her killer so confident, so psychopathic, that nothing bothered him?
The police car turns off Pipidinny Road and turns left into a rough dirt track before it comes to a stop. From this vantage point, the killer could have seen headlights approaching; fisher-men or sporting enthusiasts on their way to the sea. It is an uncomfortably hot day and Lee advises I take care as I follow him and Ken Sanderson through the scrub to Ciara's disposal site. The area, he warns, is teeming with ticks that latch on like leeches and which can cause a nasty infection if not carefully dislodged. I gingerly pick up my feet as I follow Lee off the track and into deeper scrub. Stupidly, I had not anticipated a walk and am ill-prepared in sandals and loose pants. Then, suddenly, there it is.
A white cross, placed by the police as a sign of respect and as a marker for future officers who need to find the site. A terrible reminder of a life cut short. I stare down at the cross and feel a roiling somersault in my gut. Ciara Glennon – brilliant, young, vibrant – dumped out here like human refuse where she would lie for 19 days before she was discovered in this godforsaken, remote place. God only knows what was done to her before her killer wrenched the claddagh brooch from her as a trophy, a memento.
Crows wheel overhead, their harsh caw piercing the still air and the cloudless sky offers no protection from a fierce sun. It feels like we are in Hades. Anthony Lee, privy to the terrible facts of Ciara's murder, has set his jaw hard, and grimaces. Sanderson shakes his head, staring down at the cross.
I realise I am crying, turn from this desolate place before they notice and stumble back to the car. There is a bleak silence before any of us speak again, nothing to say of any consequence: nothing, except to speak of the futility of it all; the terrible, tragic futility. How dare this killer selfishly take the lives of these beautiful young women, ending their youthful dreams with senseless, sudden violence, condemning their shattered families to an endless grief from which they will never recover?
Ken pulls the police car off the track, gripping the steering wheel hard as he drives. When he speaks, his voice is barely audible. 'It could have been anyone's daughter,' he says. 'Anyone's daughter.'
It has been a long, sultry and emotional day. My understanding is that the next morning Lee will facilitate interviews with other officers who had worked on Macro and furnish material to me that I had requested. It isn't to be. Instead, I am afforded only a telephone call. 'You're not going to like this, Debi,' Lee begins with a hint of genuine apology. 'No police officers are allowed to speak to you.'
I am stunned. 'Why not?'
'Sorry, I can't tell you that. I am not at liberty to discuss it with you any further.'
'Why wasn't I told this before I
came to Perth?'
'Sorry.' I sense that he is. Younger, less entrenched in the patronising attitude often afforded the media by older officers, Lee can see the benefits of a healthy relationship with the press. But his hands – despite the clout to which he earlier boasted – are tied. 'I can only advise you to put your grievance in writing to the commissioner, Karl O'Callaghan.'
Bewildered, I take his advice.
74
8 March 2006
Dear Mr O'Callaghan . . .
It is with some concern I write to you...I accept that this case is still operational and therefore delicate, but I would ask that the decision for these officers not to speak to me be reconsidered. I travelled to Perth in good faith, believing I would be afforded some interviews and was disappointed to find this was not the case on my arrival. I also desperately need the material promised me and am still waiting for a response to my last email...This book will go ahead but without the voice of WA police, it will not have the balance I require . . .
Shortly after, an email is sent from the commissioner's PA, confirming that I will not be afforded police cooperation in writing this book. No reasons are given.
I want to know why, beyond the case being 'operational', police are not allowed to talk to me. Or why they won't talk.
A former police officer with his ear to the ground vents his opinion. I am 'not very popular' with the WA police, he says. 'Why?' I ask him. 'I've only met one, Anthony Lee. What's all this about?' He agrees to try to find out, on the proviso that his name is not divulged.
'I would call what I have heard about you as Chinese whispers,' he writes a few weeks later. 'Who knows where it started, but it seems a lot of people have heard you are up to something, but they aren't really sure how it will affect things for them. This is all about police culture. They never like an outsider looking in their dirty laundry, or potentially critiquing police work. Despite the fact that most of your book is about Macro, this actually goes right to the top. This whole Claremont thing was about image, about demonstrating how effective their new style of policing was.'
I have asked for information on other missing and murdered girls. I do not get it. Can I at least have press releases that have gone out to the media in the past which relate to the case? No. Verification of facts to avoid possible repetition of error? No. Lists of clothing and jewellery taken? No. I will be given nothing at all. Instead, part of the information I need is supplied to me by the sole, independent volunteer operator of the Australian Missing Persons website. It is important this story is told, she tells me. She will help all she can.
It is tempting to walk away from the story, to admit defeat. But I think of what some journalists have told me: Good luck getting anything out of the West Australian police. You'll need it. I think about what Jane Rimmer's mother, Jenny, said to me when I made contact with her again after a few months.I thought you may have given up, changed your mind about writing this book. I'm so glad you haven't. And I read the words taped to my desk, spoken by Dr Christopher Waddell in 2003 at an international conference on policing and security: '. . . the healthy distance that a democratic society requires between police and the media is narrowed . . . [when] police and the media can see themselves as working together for the benefit of the community. That compromises and in some cases eliminates the media's ability to fulfil its role of holding public institutions up for scrutiny and accountability.'
I keep writing, and the stories of alleged bungles by Western Australia police or judiciary keep making headlines.
In February 2006 Canadian police officer Joe Slemko was asked to have a look at the evidence in the Mallard case. His expert opinion on blood splatters in the celebrated murder case of Susan Christie was partly responsible for Rory Christie's release from prison. Working from photographs – a fact criticised by beleaguered police who claimed he did not have the Mallard case knowledge to which WA police were privy – Slemko was blunt in his assessment. 'I would stake my reputation on the fact that another man and not Mallard was responsible for Lawrence's murder,' he said. That statement, too, would come under scrutiny and attract no little scorn. 'He didn't directly name the man he was referring to,' police sources told me, 'but it wasn't the man he was hinting at.'
The same month – almost 12 long years after his conviction for murder – DPP Robert Cock withdrew the charge against Mallard. He is a free man, but with a catch. Mallard, Cock says, is still their prime suspect.
75
Neil Fearis, a decent, conservative man, offers to drive me to a trendy eatery on the riverbank in South Perth on a Saturday afternoon in early February, almost ten years to the day after Sarah Spiers vanished. Tourists and locals wander the foreshore, eating ice cream under an unblemished azure sky, the air pregnant with humidity and the soulful sounds of live jazz. I have been in the city only a week, seduced as I am each visit by its languid charms, its sensuous, laidback air. But on this trip, paranoia and a heightened sense of personal safety have firmly kicked in. The trouble with this story, a Perth colleague warns me, is that no one knows who's who. No one knows who they can trust.
Fearis, casually dressed in shorts and loafers, graciously agrees when I ask if he minds if we talk instead in the restaurant where we have met. I don't tell him the real reason I decline to get in his vehicle. Beyond the two police officers from the Special Crime Squad and my colleagues, whom I know, I will not get in any man's vehicle here, regardless of who they are. I spend much of my working life either chasing, interviewing, researching or writing about killers, but I don't take unnecessary risks unless they are unavoidable.
Don Spiers has earlier invited me to talk to him at his apartment in Darkan where his shearing company is based and where he works during the week. I decline for the same reason, offering the spurious, though true, excuse that I am allergic to spiders and that Darkan is a distance from medical care. His poignant response makes me feel ashamed of my lack of trust. 'There are more poisonous spiders in the city than the bush, Debi,' he says.
I avoid taxis here, too, if possible. Who knows who's who? Since the Claremont murders, taxi companies boast that they have cleaned up rogue drivers, that women are safe. How then to explain the behaviour of the driver on my first day in the city, who put his hand on my knee as I paid the fare, accompanied by a running commentary on what he would like to do to a pretty young thing like me if he got the chance. 'I am neither pretty, nor young,' I responded, nervously slapping his hand away and fleeing the cab. It is broad daylight and I shudder at what may have happened had it been deserted and dark.
Fearis swivels his cold drink with a spoon and reflects on Ciara's murder. Nine years later, the subject is obviously still raw for him. Guilt that he did not see her home safely weighs heavily on his conscience. 'Traditionally, men are the hunter gatherers who look after women. We are the ones who offer shelter and protection. It is ironic that had we been out having a drink with women 30 years ago, there would be no question that we would see them home to safety. But the world has changed,' he sighs. He ruminates on how unbelievable her murder is. 'This wasn't 3 o'clock in the morning at a place like Redfern in Sydney. This was 11 at night, in a classy, safe suburb of Perth.' Safe?
'Two girls had already gone missing from there,' I remind him. 'One had been found murdered. How can it be regarded as safe?' Fearis nods.
'That's another irony, isn't it,' he says. 'Ciara hitches in some of the most unsafe areas in the world, and she comes home to Claremont. Comes home for a wedding, and ends up going to a funeral. Her own.'
Sarah Spiers's birthday, 12 September, comes and goes, the day passing in a sombre blur for her family. A decade on, the years of searching and finding nothing have ground them down, made them wary of the world. Don, fatalistically resigned to perhaps never knowing where Sarah is, does not dress his heartache in fancy words. 'I feel as if someone has got a scalpel and cut my guts out,' he says. His brooding eyes, set in a rugged bushman's face behind large glasses, are ringed with black
from years of little sleep and he has the curt, no-nonsense air of the wounded. Sound sleep eludes him: nightmares haunt his rest and he nominates to meet me at a South Perth café at 6 am. Dawn has only just nudged out the moon, the sun only now on the rise, but already he has been long awake. Despite this, he is uncharacteristically late; almost an hour. There is very little traffic at South Perth this time of morning, near the trendy Windsor Hotel where Sarah Spiers was dropped the night she disappeared. I feel vulnerable, vaguely unnerved and conspicuous, sitting alone on a wooden bench waiting for him to arrive. So few people around, save for the young, sleepy man behind the cash register at the service station opposite, and the occasional vehicle that pulls in for petrol. How easy, I think; how frighteningly easy for a car to pull up, with one or more passengers, and to be forced or lured inside. No one would notice. It could be all over in a matter of seconds.
Be gentle with Don, I was warned before we met. He is so heartbroken. He is more than heartbroken; he is stricken and tormented. His huge hands strangle the coffee cup, as though he may crush it when he says his daughter's name and grief slices through his sentences like a knife. Tired of talking to the press and getting nothing back, he seesaws between quiet and reflective to loud and aggravated, punching his fingers on the table to make a point.
There is a solitariness to Don Spiers that is impossible to penetrate, an emotional drawbridge that he never lets down. Shattered hopes for Sarah's safe return have frayed his edges, robbed him of joie de vivre, and he wanders off mid-sentence when a memory of his daughter suddenly threatens to over-come him. He is savagely critical of me when he thinks I may in some way be censuring the police, and I feel his verbal sting. 'I want to know where my daughter is,' he says. 'You are only writing this book to make money.' Grief has robbed Don Spiers of gentle tact. He lives only for one purpose: to find Sarah.
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