Not a flicker of emotion. 'Yes.'
'We are from the police.'
Hyde switches off the washing machine. 'Where have you been today?' he asks Percy.
'To Cowes, Phillip Island, and then back here,' Percy answers. He just went for a drive, he adds, and was wearing the jeans he has just washed.
'We want to have a look through your locker,' they tell him.
In a bag on top of the locker they find two lewd girlie magazines and pieces of paper with rough sketches of nude children. 'Did you make these sketches?' Hyde asks.
Percy keeps his head down, staring at the floor. 'Yes.'
'Are there any more in your possession?'
'No, but I have some more at home.'
Hyde turns to Commander Riley. 'I would like to caution Percy in your presence, sir. Although he is not under arrest at this stage, he is not free to leave.' Percy continues to stare at the floor.
Hyde recites the formal caution. 'My name is Hyde and this is First Constable White and First Constable Coates and we are investigating an alleged abduction of a twelve-year-old girl from the Warneet area at about 12.30 p.m. today. I feel that there is a strong possibility that you may be implicated and it is my duty to warn you that you are not obliged to answer any questions unless you wish but anything you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence. Do you understand?'
'Yes.'
'Is there anything you want to say now?'
'No.'
Word has spread through the naval base that a rating is being questioned over the abduction of a young girl. Ordinary seaman Ed Pietsch, who started recruit training with Percy eighteen months before, is in his cabin watching television when he sees the identikit picture of the suspect police want to question. 'Fuck!' he says out loud. 'That bloke's a dead ringer for bloody Percy!' Pietsch knows him well: just a fortnight before, he and another sailor, Paul Webb, had scored a lift with Percy to Sydney when they were on shore leave. Pietsch and his cabin-mates walk over to Percy's cabin to see if it is him, but by the time they get there he has already been arrested.
Sailors jostle at the windows to get a glimpse of the action, murmuring to each other when they realise that Percy is the rating in question. Not one has ever stepped ashore with him for a night out drinking or chasing women and most know him by his unflattering nicknames: the Spook or the Ghost for his disconcerting habit of appearing and disappearing without warning. There's something creepy about him that they can't quite work out. Like a prowler or peeping tom who appears at your window, without warning, in the dead of night.
Percy, accompanied by Patrolman Irving, drives his own car back to the police office on the base. It is a short trip, but there is a foul stench in the vehicle that Irving can't ignore; a stench, he later comments, that almost made him ill. He can't quite work out the smell but Percy, he notices, is clearly unperturbed by it.
Constables Coates and White search Percy's car as he looks on. It quickly pays dividends. Three knives, including the red-handled sheath knife described by Shane Spiller, are found under the driver's seat and in the glove box. The blade and hilt of the sheath knife are stained russet-red with dried blood.
Coates holds it up for Percy to see. 'There is blood on this knife. How did it get there?'
Percy shrugs his shoulders. 'I don't know.'
'When did you use the knife last?'
'When I was on leave a fortnight ago. I was out sailing.' He seems cold, impassive, disinterested, though politely compliant.
Coates tries another tack. 'You have been informed why you are being questioned and you realise that this girl may be lying somewhere injured. Any information you can give may assist us. Have you anything to say about this?'
'No.'
Hyde speaks to Percy in the yard of the naval police cells. 'You can be identified as being in the Warneet area and your car has been identified. You have also been told that a girl has been abducted from there and that you are the owner of a car containing a bloodstained knife that you say is yours. Do you want to tell me all about it and about the whereabouts of the girl now?'
Percy peers into Hyde's face. 'I am sorry,' he says, 'but I do things that I can't remember afterwards.'
Hyde pauses, taking in Percy's response. I do things that I can't remember afterwards. 'Do you remember being on the beach at Warneet?'
'No, I don't remember anything about Warneet.'
Hyde dispatched officers to Fisheries Road, where Percy's car was last seen outside the naval depot, to start the grim search for the young girl. Melbourne Homicide is kept up to speed on developments: 'Girl still not located. Suspect detained in brig at naval base.'
A handful of sailors on weekend duty are seconded to stand guard outside Percy's cell. While instructed not to speak to him, they are under orders to report anything he says. 'Why have they got me? Why have they got me?' he asks anyone in earshot, over and over.
Close to 8 p.m., Detectives Delaney, Robertson and Porter, travelling with team leader Detective Sergeant Dick Knight, arrive at HMAS Cerberus from Melbourne to escort Percy to nearby Frankston police station. Each has a distinctive personality but together they work in sync. Robertson tries again to elicit information from Percy. 'Do you know anything about the missing girl?' he asks.
'No, the other police asked me,' Percy tells him, sulkily. 'I don't know a thing. I have been sitting here just thinking and thinking.'
Robertson, used to the glib lies of professional criminals, doesn't believe a word of it. 'Have you been to Warneet today?'
Yes, Percy admits. He remembers turning towards Warneet to look at the local Yacht Club.
'What time were you in Warneet?'
Percy shrugs, nonchalant. He can't remember being in Warneet, he says. But he left the base at Flinders this morning and went to Cowes for a drive.
'Are you telling us that you can remember what you did before you went to Warneet and immediately after, but you can't remember actually being in Warneet?'
'Yes, sir. That's the truth.'
Police bring Shane Spiller to the base to identify Percy's car. He trawls along the line of vehicles and stops at the Datsun he saw at the beach. He does not prevaricate, pointing it out in the simple language of an eleven-year-old. 'This is the car the man was sitting in,' he says, tripping over his words, excited. Bill Little stands behind him, and nods gravely. 'That's the car. No doubt about it.'
Forensics moves in. The unpleasant task of notating what is in the car falls to Henry Huggins, from the Forensic Science Laboratory. Mattress and eiderdown. Pillow. A packet of Clix biscuits, opened. A packet of Gingernut biscuits, unopened. Road maps in the glove box, with some routes highlighted in texta: Sydney and environs; Victoria; Perth environs; Melbourne environs; Canberra. A Shell touring guide to Tasmania. A screwed-up piece of paper in the ashtray. What Huggins doesn't notate is the disgusting odour inside the car, a stench that his colleagues, bluntly, say smells like shit.
At 9.30, Commander Riley is taken to Percy's cell where he assures him that he will organise Legal Aid. As a junior sailor, it is the Navy's duty of care to look after his interests. Although the police are ready to transfer Percy to Frankston for interviewing, Commander Riley holds them up with finicky bureaucratic detail. 'You can't have him,' he tells them. 'He is a naval rating on naval property.'
The police are forced to cool their heels while Riley phones around his higher-ups in Canberra. Eventually the advice came back: Percy could be taken under escort from naval property, but Riley had to stay with him at all times.
The police humour Riley until they arrive at Frankston, where Percy is put in the interview room. When Riley is left in the corridor with a cup of tea, he tersely reminds Constable Delaney that he has been advised to stay with Ordinary Seaman Percy throughout any interviews; that he was a naval rating under his jurisdiction.
'You are now in our jurisdiction,' Delaney retorts. 'And if you sit in the room while we interview Percy, you will be deemed to be a witness. Y
ou must wait outside.'
It is now 12.15 a.m., twelve hours since Yvonne's abduction. Sergeant Knight calls the team into a meeting, grey smoke from Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes curling around their faces. He perches sideways on the edge of a desk and gets straight to the point. Knight is well respected by his team; an imposing, well-spoken man of forthright temperament who will rise to the rank of Assistant Commissioner. He knows his job and conducts himself accordingly, using few profanities with police or criminals. In his mid-forties, the stresses of his position have turned his hair prematurely grey and tonight's pressures are showing on his face. 'Look, we all know that this is the sort of bastard we'd love to take out the back and beat the crap out of,' he starts. 'But we do this one by the book. We'll be courteous to him regardless of what we think. We want no allegations from him that we treated him badly or told lies. We take strict notes: times in, times out. Coffee breaks. Food breaks. Toilet breaks. Anything we say to him, anything he says to us, we write down. We don't want anything going wrong if this gets to court.' And Knight has made another decision. If Percy's memory is indeed genuinely receding, he will take him through the interview questions in reverse so that he can reveal where he has put Tuohy's body.
The warning to run this one by the book particularly suits Alan Porter. An intense, good looking man with olive skin and impeccable dress sense, he is the worrier in the team, senior to Bernie Delaney in years but not rank. A good organiser, his forte is rounding up exhibits and ensuring they are labelled correctly, collating witness statements, keeping Forensics on track and the investigation flowing smoothly. Knight will run the interviews; Delaney, his easy-going façade belying a fierce determination and ability to not impede progress while viewing the worst of crime scenes, will be the note-taker. And Porter will ensure that it all runs the way it should.
Experience warns these detectives that this investigation will be a huge juggernaut. They need to stay on top of it from the start.
5
Percy changes his story. He has made a mistake, he now admits. The previous night he went to the Frankston drive-in alone and then slept in his car, not at HMAS Cerberus, as he had earlier said. When he woke up, he drove down to Cowes, stopping only to buy some biscuits from a roadside café. And on the return journey to Flinders, he detoured through Warneet.
Delaney and Knight look at the clock. He has made no admissions since he has been in police custody and his frigid demeanour has not changed. Knight keeps trying. 'The little girl was abducted from the beach at 12.30 p.m.,' he says. 'If you drove to Warneet, you must have driven past the beach from which she was taken; what do you say to that?'
Percy doesn't look up. 'I can't remember.'
'If you were on the road to Warneet at lunchtime and did not return to Cerberus till 4.30 p.m., how do you account for the time in between?'
'I can't. I can't remember.'
Knight tells Percy that two witnesses have identified his car. He waits for a reaction. Nothing. 'What do you say to that?'
'I can't remember. I can't say if I can't remember.'
I can't say if I can't remember. Even forty years later, as I read his typed responses flatly recorded on the page in the police record of interview, this strikes me as a clever ploy, a Pontius Pilate response, washing his hands of his own actions. If he honestly doesn't remember, how can he be held responsible? And if he does remember, how can they force him to admit it?
Even before admissions are made, Percy, a suspected paedophile and child abductor, is already despised. Some of these police officers have children of their own. It could be their daughter who has been abducted. On the page, in the neatly typed interview, emotions and reactions seem detached, controlled. But Yvonne Tuohy is missing, perhaps lying hurt somewhere. And this thin-faced bastard with the blank eyes is wasting their time.
Robertson walks into the interview room, quietly putting down the red-handled, blood-stained knife found in Percy's car and the drawings and magazines found in his locker. He leaves the room and shortly after, Delaney and Knight follow him, leaving the door open. The evidence is mounting. Percy is alone for several minutes before Knight returns.
Knight tries a soft approach, appealing to Percy's decency. 'All those things I have told you, your inability to account for your movements this afternoon, your car being identified by two witnesses, what appears to be a blood-stained knife, taken from your car, and these drawings lead us to believe that you may know something about the little girl and again I will ask you to help us find her. If she is alive she may need help.'
At their home, Yvonne's parents restlessly prowl their modest lounge room and answer incessant police questions as they wait for news of their daughter. Her two sisters, Maxine and Denise, with whom she shares a bedroom, have never heard of the word 'abducted' and think she is lost in the bush. But they instinctively know better than to ask their parents anything more. Tonight there is an edge in the household, an atmosphere they don't understand. Something nasty is going on.
Percy is still staring at a spot on the floor, belligerently silent. Knight's plea for him to help find Yvonne appears to have fallen on deaf ears. Suddenly he breaks. 'I don't know what to do.'
Knight steals a sharp look at Delaney. 'Why do you say that?' he asks Percy.
And finally Percy tells them, in sentences broken by lengthy pauses. 'I can remember being at the beach and I can see the two children . . . I was sitting in the car and then I got out and chased the girl.' He tells them, too, how Shane pulled out his tomahawk and waved it around his head at him. Affronted, almost at the boy's audacity. 'Not a toy one, sir. A real one.'
It is two o'clock in the morning. There is still no sign of Yvonne and still no admissions from Percy about where she is. 'Where did you take the girl?' Knight asks, exasperated. Hard experience tells him that Percy can't hold out much longer. They take a break and Percy gulps down a glass of water. 'I've been trying to remember,' he finally says. 'I've been trying to think what to do.' And it comes out, slowly: 'I know she is dead.'
What went on in that moment, in the seconds following his admission? I wonder. In 1969 suspects had a right to legal advice but records of interview were not recorded on video or audio.
The typed words, recorded at 2 a.m. – almost 10 hours after they took Percy into custody – show the official response: 'I know she is dead.'
'Why do you say that?'
'I killed her.'
6
Yvonne Tuohy has been missing for almost fourteen hours. The pressure is off to find her and get medical help but it is now pressing that her parents are told the heartbreaking news. And the police still have to locate her body.
Knight waits while Percy absorbs the fact that he is about to be charged. He is stammering over his words, now. 'I know, I know. I'm trying. I will take you there. I think I can remember where it is. It's not far from the beach. I will point it out to you. I can remember now.' He recounts what he can recall of the bush setting: a clearing, a track off Fisheries Road, but he was interrupted by another family and so he ordered the girl in the back of the car, told her to hide under the eiderdown while he drove to another spot 'I will show you,' Percy says. 'She is there.'
The detectives move quickly now, making arrangements for a convoy of cars to drive out to the area. Percy, pale and tremulous, has a question before they leave. 'I won't be cold, will I?'
Knight, a consummately professional detective, stalls for a nanosecond. The question stuns him. This bloke has just murdered a twelve-year-old girl and his only question is: 'I won't be cold, will I?' He doesn't allow his disgust to show. 'You will be in the car most of the time. But if you want a coat we would get one for you.'
Percy remains blank-faced. 'I will probably be all right. I will tell you if I want one.'
It is dark out on the lonely track where only fresh tyre tracks serve as a marker to where Percy's car has driven. He sits in the back seat of the police vehicle, sullen and aloof apart from warning detectives to drive s
lowly, they are almost there.
Porter's torchlight picks up the tyre tracks near where they walk. A self-confessed nitpicker for the smallest details, he advises them to take care. 'Careful of the tracks. Walk around to the other side.' Percy, slightly hunched, leads the way, with Knight and Delaney behind him and Robertson and Porter at the rear. Damp leaves squish underfoot and there is a slight breeze on the chill night air.
Percy stops, pointing to a small clump of ti-tree. 'There. She is behind there.'
The terrible news is delivered to Francis and Nancy Tuohy shortly after 4 a.m. Detective Inspector Ford stands in their small kitchen, respectfully holding his hat in his hands, waiting for the response he knows will follow. A sound escapes Nancy – a tortured primeval wail that ricochets around the room – and Francis turns slightly, his jaw set like granite and his hands clenched into fists. Grey with shock, when his daughters wake he tells them to go into their mother's bedroom, that she has something unpleasant to tell them. And she breaks it to them in a voice with no inflection, the voice of one who has just fallen into the darkest grief. Yvonne is not coming home, she says. She is dead.
From the moment the Tuohy family is told of Yvonne's murder, they hunker down with their sorrow. Once a happy family unit, unfathomable grief robs the household of laughter and they will soon become insular, private, circling warily around people. Yvonne's bed will be stripped, her clothes packed up, her childhood toys given away. For the next twenty years, her sisters will not speak her name for fear of further upsetting their parents. For twenty years, Yvonne will remain a ghostly figure in the household, not forgotten but never mentioned.
Thompson, Gorringe and Huggins barely speak as they guard Yvonne's body in the hours before dawn. There is little they can say to each other that doesn't sound hollow and flippant. Around 5 a.m., with the first birdsong, the undertaker arrives at Devon Meadows and lifts Yvonne's crumpled, desecrated body from the earth, transporting her under police escort to Melbourne's Alfred Hospital, where life is pronounced extinct. After, they make the sad journey to the city mortuary.
Lambs to the Slaughter Page 3
