A Necessary Evil

by Bruce Venables

‘One question. Where would Gary Bisley get a bloody .32 pocket automatic?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have the slightest idea.’

  Once again they stared at each other. This time Everard broke the silence.

  ‘We look after our own.’

  ‘Jesus Christ.’ Joe Hartford shook his head. ‘Is the gun absolutely cold?’

  ‘Totally untraceable.’

  ‘Witnesses?’

  ‘To the shooting? Reid and Bromley.’

  ‘Reliable?’

  ‘Like the rock of Gibraltar.’

  ‘Could the newspapers have anything we don’t know about?’

  ‘Nothing. I’ve got Bill Norris outside. I’m going to feed him exclusively.’

  ‘He’s nobody’s fool.’

  ‘Neither am I.’

  Hartford leaned on the mantelpiece. ‘What about the murder of Johnson?’

  ‘Ten minutes in the Coroner’s Court will sort that out. I’ve got a dozen witnesses. They’ll all say they saw it.’

  ‘That’s it then.’

  ‘Not quite.’ Everard looked him straight in the eye. ‘What happens to Thirty-Three Division?’

  ‘They’re hard men, George. Can you keep control?’

  Everard rose to his feet. ‘Can I what!’

  Hartford laughed at the reaction. ‘Okay, take it easy, I was pulling your leg. I’ve already spoken to the Commissioner. This business could have ruined it for you George, but it’s airtight by the sound of it. Am I correct?’

  ‘Too right you are. Nobody goes down in my division.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. Tidy up tonight’s incident for tomorrow’s papers then I want you all to sit on your arses for a month until it’s blown over.’

  Everard shrugged. ‘Then what?’

  ‘Gaming and Vice.’

  ‘Total control?’

  ‘State-wide.’

  Everard sat down and looked at his old friend. ‘Thank you, Joe. I mean it. Thank you.’

  ‘Don’t thank me,’ said Hartford, raising a hand. ‘You did it yourself. In six months the teenage crime incident rate has halved. Thirty-Three Division did exactly what the Commissioner wanted. Now he wants control over these new slot machines, or poker machines, or whatever they’re called. I said you were the man for the job and he agreed. The State Gaming and Vice Squad will be official from the first of November and your promotion to Superintendent will be gazetted on the tenth of December.’

  George Everard turned and gazed out of his window at the darkened barracks square and whispered, ‘The tenth of December.’

  ‘The same day the Olympic Games start in Melbourne.’

  Everard turned back and grinned. ‘Well, then, let the games begin.’

  Hartford smiled and put on his hat. ‘That’ll be a day to remember, eh George? In more ways than one.’

  Hartford left and George Arthur Everard turned back to the window. He felt a surge of overwhelming power and stared over towards the darkened stables. Then he spun back into action. ‘Norris! Norris, get in here.’

  Lucky Bill Norris entered warily.

  ‘Billy boy, have I got a story for you.’

  Norris grinned. ‘And I’ll bet it’s the truth.’

  Everard’s eyes went cold. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Bill Norris was a brave man. He’d faced down hardened killers in his time, but for once he sensed he was out of his league. Everard struck terror into his soul. ‘Sorry, Inspector, I was joking.’

  Everard continued to stare at him for several seconds and then broke into a grin. ‘Of course you were, Billy my lad. Now open that notebook of yours and get out your pencil. I’ve got a magnificent story of police heroism for you, set amongst the vicious world of teenage gang violence.’

  When Norris left he was a frightened man. For once he cared not one whit for the truth. He was going to file Everard’s story for the morning edition and go home to his wife and kids.

  Everard watched him leave his office, then turned to Jimmy Fadden. ‘Jimmy, my boy, what would you like for Christmas?’

  Fadden laughed as the tension in the office seemed to ease. ‘All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, sir. What did you have in mind?’

  ‘How about an Inspectorship?’

  Fadden stared at his boss. ‘Are you serious, sir?’

  ‘Inspectors Bromley, Reid, Ames and Fadden. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? Four brand spanking new shiny inspectors for the new Gaming and Vice Squad, to be known as Thirty-Three Division.’ He looked at Fadden’s shocked face. ‘Mind the shop for a while, will you, Jimmy? I’m going to step out for a breath of night air. I’ve got one more prize to collect.’ He winked at his sergeant. ‘I don’t think it’s too early to wish you a Merry Christmas, Jimmy,’ he said on his way down the stairs.

  She heard him enter the stables. She sat, still as stone. His figure blocked out the moonlight and he whispered, ‘Janey, Janey, my girl?’

  ‘I’m here.’

  ‘Of course you are.’

  ‘Please don’t hurt me,’ she pleaded. ‘It wasn’t my fault.’

  ‘What wasn’t your fault?’

  ‘Him getting stabbed.’

  Everard approached her and started undoing his trousers. ‘Now who said it was? Mind you, you are a witness. There’s that to consider. And one the defence would have a field day with, considering your choice of profession’—his voice grew menacing—‘but all I have to do is make you disappear, don’t I?’

  ‘Oh please don’t,’ Jane whimpered, ‘you’re frightening me.’

  ‘But you love that don’t you? You love that.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I do.’

  Her whole body was shaking as Everard gently lowered her onto a pile of horse blankets. ‘Good girl,’ he whispered, ‘good girl. Now relax, I’m not going to hurt you, Janey. You’re my final prize for winning.’

  She felt him fumbling with her panties and lifted her hips as he slid them down. ‘Your prize for winning what?’ She could never read his moods. They’d been together on a number of occasions and each time had been different. The first couple of times had been in alleyways and he’d been violent with her, like a bull, but since then he’d been gentler. She began to moisten as she felt him at her entrance. Her fantasy was beginning again. She loved his brutal power, if only she could control it. The trouble was, she couldn’t.

  ‘The whole ball game, Janey. I’ve won the whole ball game.’

  She felt him enter her and adjusted herself to accommodate his size. He thrust deeper inside her and she felt herself respond. The size and power of him always got to her when he wasn’t violent. Will he turn? she thought. Will he turn, or just use me? Please just use me, she prayed, just use me. Jane loved it when he used her. She’d never known sex like it. She felt him stroking her face and arms. He was whispering to her. She felt herself drifting off in pleasure, and forced herself back to reality. Oh no, she thought, be ready for it.

  ‘I’ve won it all, Janey, and you’re the prize. No more back-street bullshit for you and me. I’m going to be king of the hill, Janey, and you’ll belong to me, exclusively. Are you listening?’

  ‘Yes,’ she gasped, ‘yes.’ What was he saying? She was losing herself. He was being so strong, so tender, so loving, yet still she waited for him to strike.

  ‘You’ll be mine now, Janey. No more hurting. No more pain.’

  ‘Yes,’ she gasped, ‘yes.’ What was he saying? Why didn’t he hit her? His power over her was devastating. She was beginning to float. ‘Hit me,’ she whispered, ‘hit me, and get it over with. Please don’t do this. Why are you doing this?’ The sensations were engulfing her.

  ‘No more hurting. No more pain.’

  ‘Yes. Oh yes, no more hurting. Yes. Yes.’ He was too big and too strong. She gave up. As her orgasm overtook her, she saw the face of the devil and lost her soul.

  Everard watched her writhe beneath him and knew he’d won. She’d be the jewel in his crown. His woman, his
spy, his weapon. He’d give her everything she lacked in life and he’d take her soul in return for it. He watched as she lost control, crying, and calling out his name. Only then did he allow himself release.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Broken Hill. 1960

  Pat Morgan was running. From what he didn’t really know, but nevertheless he ran as fast as his legs would carry him. He ran through the darkness of the tunnel towards the main shaft of the mine. He knew he was running for his life. Make the cage, his mind screamed, make the cage and get back up the main shaft to safety. Let me get out of this mine, he prayed. Please God, let me get out and I’ll do what’s right for the rest of my life. The smell of gas reached his nostrils and he screamed. Then he heard the roar of a thousand caged lions. He turned and saw the billowing flames rushing towards him and he screamed the scream of the condemned. The flames engulfed him and he saw the faces of demons in the wall of fire, laughing as they watched him melt.

  He sat bolt upright in bed, gasping, sweat pouring from his body. He shook uncontrollably and sobbed as he caught sight of his horror-stricken face in the bedroom mirror. He drank in the cool, sweet air that wafted through his bedroom window and as his breathing slowed he began to cry. Softly, like a frightened child.

  Pat Morgan sat that way for several minutes until the memory of his nightmare receded. It was always the same. Six months would pass and the dream would be forgotten and then, without warning, it would return to terrify him, rushing out of his subconscious like a beast from hell. He got up and went into the bathroom.

  Morgan was the newest appointed member of the all-powerful Barrier Industrial Council. It ran Broken Hill with a fist of iron, controlling the union members of all four mines in operation: the North Mine, the South, the Zinc and the North Broken Hill Consolidated. It said who worked and who didn’t. It said who played and who didn’t. And if it said ‘jump’ all you could ask was ‘how high?’

  Broken Hill was a union town, all right. It had a history forged by the blood and sweat of the working man. Nobody told Broken Hill what to do—not even governments. They’d tried over the years, even tried to use the army, but it got them nowhere. The Hill had survived it all. Strikes, mining disasters, dust storms, the lot. The people were tougher than the metal they dug out of the desert beneath their feet. They’d fought hard for their rights and would never relinquish them. The members of the Barrier Industrial Council were the custodians of those rights and as such they held the power of the people.

  Prior to World War II, the miners had bargained for and won a lead bonus. Every year since then, the mining companies had paid them a percentage of the profits from the ore yield. During the war, lead and precious metal prices had soared and the people of The Hill had never looked back. The ‘bonus’ had taken many a miner and his family on a well-deserved holiday, or purchased for them an electrical luxury item such as a refrigerator. Silent Knights and Kelvinators were highly prized by people accustomed to going without. At last, life was easier. Social clubs and lawn bowls became the order of the day. Trees and parks were created around the city to hold back the desert and sealed roads and paved footpaths became a reality. Strikes and violence were things of the past.

  But full stomachs and money in the bank can breed complacency. The people of Broken Hill had succumbed to a feeling of well-being. The men had motor cars and money to gamble with. The women had automatic washing machines and social clubs to attend. They all thought their hard-earned rights were in safe hands, like their money in the banks. But in the hearts of some men the memories of hunger and deprivation lived on.

  Pat Morgan was one such man. His family had been in The Hill since the 1890s. History had not been kind to them. His grandfather and uncle had died underground and his father had suffered lung disease. His mother had had four kids and was a weary old woman at forty. Two of his brothers had died of poliomyelitis and his mother followed them with a broken heart. His sister became a whore in an Iodide Street brothel, then ran off to Sydney with a travelling brush salesman.

  Pat went underground at the age of eighteen. He would never forget his first trip down under the earth. Two miles down in a cage. He’d been dreading it since childhood. For the next fifteen years he’d fought the daily rising fear as the cage took him to the rockface. The mines had taken his grandfather and then his uncle and he knew it was only a matter of time before he too would burn in hell.

  Then Scobie Brereton had nominated him for union representative. ‘There’s a lot to be said for it, Pat. Do your apprenticeship underground, and before you know it, you’ll be in a position to help yourself to a wonderful life.’

  Pat had jumped at the chance. He became a union man through and through. He read every book and treatise on unionism ever written. He stood up in the meetings and let his voice be heard. He was recognised by council members as a future leader and was nurtured accordingly. He kissed the arses of his bosses and preached fanatically to the working men, until the day finally arrived when he was elected to the Barrier Industrial Council. He was still obliged to do two shifts a year underground—even B.I.C. members didn’t escape the mines altogether. Union rules required them to keep in touch with their brothers at the face, but so far, Pat had managed to avoid it. He’d made a vow to himself. The next time he went underground it would be in a coffin.

  Pat Morgan shaved, dressed himself in an appropriate shirt and tie and stepped out of his front door into Bromide Street. He was a union official. A member of the B.I.C. And he was off to a very important meeting.

  Scobie Brereton stood in the back bar of the Lucky Strike Hotel in Blend Street. He swallowed the last of his beer and ordered another, then walked across the room to a doorway marked ‘Private Parlour’. He opened the door and checked the arrangements. A circular table with six chairs and a drinks cabinet to one side were the only pieces of furniture in the room. The blinds were drawn against the harsh sunlight, bathing the room in a soft golden glow. Satisfied, he closed the door and returned to the bar.

  ‘That’s the second time you’ve checked that room, Scobie,’ said the barman as he placed a seven ounce beer on the bar, ‘is there something wrong?’

  ‘No. No, I thought the boys might have arrived, that’s all. I want to get on with things.’

  ‘You’re a go-getter, Scobie, there’s no doubt about it,’ laughed the barman and he went in to the other bar to serve his customers.

  Scobie Brereton was nervous. It was not a feeling he was accustomed to. As the leader of the B.I.C. he was probably the most powerful man in Broken Hill, but here he was pacing about like a bride.

  His nervousness was justified. He was about to embark on a journey from which there was no turning back. He sipped his beer and looked at his reflection in the bar mirror. He was fifty years old. His hair was receding and freckles spattered his face and balding head.

  As a kid born in The Hill, he’d played on the mining leases with his friends and rolled down slag heaps and crept behind tin sheds to watch fights and two-up games. He’d heard the disaster sirens go when accidents had occurred and he’d sat at the mine gates with his mother waiting for the all clear, or the terrible news that someone had been killed. He’d stood at the picket lines with his father and other miners during strikes and remembered when the army had come to town to sort out the troubles. That had been a laugh. They’d gone off with their tails between their legs. The Governor-General had eventually come to The Hill and had met the strike committee in the bar of the Pig & Whistle Hotel. Scobie’s old man had been the leader of the miners’ committee and had turned to the Governor-General and said, ‘My name’s Syd, mate, what’s yours?’ The story was a legend now and so was Scobie. He’d been a kid in The Hill and now he was king of it, and he wanted to be more, so much more.

  He felt a hand clap him on the shoulder. ‘G’day, Scobie.’

  ‘Pat Morgan,’ he laughed, ‘just the man I needed to see.’ He looked over Morgan’s shoulder and saw three other men walk in. ‘The others
have arrived. Get them seated, Pat, while I order some drinks.’

  Morgan went off to greet the others and Scobie Brereton turned back to his reflection in the bar mirror. This is it, Scobie, it’s now or never, he thought, and called to the barman.

  Four men sat around the circular table listening to the voice of Scobie Brereton. He’d said nothing out of the ordinary yet. He’d gone on about the history of the miners and the power of the B.I.C. and wandered through a discourse on unionism and the proud heritage of their forefathers, but they all knew something was in the wind. When it came it was like a bombshell.

  ‘I want to get rid of Lou Williams.’

  There was a gasp around the table. Lou Williams was an institution in Broken Hill. He was the sitting member of the New South Wales State Parliament for The Hill and had been so since World War II.

  Brereton slammed his hand onto the table. ‘He’s old, he’s out of touch and he’s gone soft. He goes.’

  ‘A few of the members might not be too happy with that,’ one of the men ventured. ‘He’s well-liked.’

  ‘The members will do as we suggest.’

  ‘He might be harder to dislodge than you think,’ said another. ‘He’s got plenty of friends in high places.’

  ‘We’re his friends in high places!’ exploded Brereton. ‘Without the support of the Barrier Industrial Council, he’s nobody.’

  ‘What if he talks?’ asked Pat Morgan.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Well, you know,’ Morgan shrugged. ‘We’ve done some pretty shady deals through him. He could put us all in the shit.’

  Brereton shook his head. ‘Not without covering himself in it. We’ll give him a golden handshake, he’ll get his parliamentary pension and he’ll go off and die somewhere. Or write his memoirs. It’s the same thing.’

  ‘What’s brought this about, Scobie?’ asked Morgan intently.

  Brereton raised his hands. ‘I won’t beat around the bush. We’ve done our jobs with the unions in our hearts, there’s no denying that, and we’ve taken the odd shilling occasionally and stored it away for a rainy day. No member would begrudge us that. They’d do the same themselves. The members don’t stick their noses into our business—it’s not worth the trouble it’d cause and, anyway, they’re all living high on the hog’s back. The Hill’s been good to them since the war and a lot of the credit for that goes to us, the council members! We’ve done nothing any other member wouldn’t do himself were he lucky enough to be elected to the council as we were.’