‘If she thought he did it, she’d hang him,’ Marilyn says. ‘She would be the first to march him into the cops if she thought he was guilty.’
‘We’ve been brought up to abide by the law,’ Sandra adds. ‘Our mother would fight until hell froze over for us, but if it was protecting criminal behaviour – she’d make us front up.’
I turn to Raymond again.
‘Raymond, has your mother ever looked you in the eye and asked if you killed Deidre Kennedy?’This is hallowed ground, and it’s starting to feel a bit shaky.
‘Yes, she has.’ It is Sandra who has answered but Raymond seems bamboozled, surprised.
‘Has she?’ he asks.
‘Yeah, she did. She said, “Did you do it, Son?”’
What despair, I wonder, must Ilma have felt to be driven to ask her son such a question? Haunted by the fact she was unable to afford dental surgery that would have altered his appearance, did she ever wonder if, in a symbolic act of revenge against constant baiting, taunting and teasing, he had used those teeth as a weapon? She must have wondered, to ask that question. Did you do it, Son?
Raymond shrugs non-committally. He doesn’t remember it happening.
Sandra offers the explanation. ‘Like there haven’t been heaps of other important things happening in the last 20 years.’
‘Look, I’ve got a shocking memory,’ he offers. ‘And it’s my memory that has got me into a lot of trouble. I can’t give you times or dates.’ It is a recurring theme, the reason Justice Vasta asked the jury: is a bad memory a convenient refuge?
‘There are lots of things you’ve said that don’t look good,’ I venture. ‘Like when you said to John Reynolds, “Oh, that shit about the baby again?” It sounds flippant, doesn’t it?’
‘Yeah it does. But if somebody comes hounding you over something that you know you haven’t done, and they keep going and going and going, what are you going to do?’
‘I don’t think he ever meant to be flippant about the death of that baby.’ Sandra is on the move again.
‘I’m not, no! I try and help the police and this is what I get for it! If I go in there and shut me mouth, what’s it look like? Oh, he’s guilty. If I go in and try and help the best I can –’
‘He doesn’t show any emotion on the stand and they go, “He’s a cold-hearted killer”,’ Sandra interrupts. ‘But what people don’t know is that his legal team told him not to show any emotion.’
‘Is that why you’ve been described as coldly detached?’ I ask Raymond.
‘Yeah, and I am. After all this has been going on, the only way I can survive is to detach meself from the whole lot of it. People ask me how have I handled it so well, and my answer is, “In a way, it hasn’t happened to me.” It’s a part of me life that’s there, but it’s that bricked up it’s worse than Fort Knox.’
‘Do you think it’s possible to murder a baby and block it out?’
‘Do I? Nuh. I don’t think I could totally block it out. Like I say, I detach meself from all that’s happened to me, it’s the only way I can survive. But it’s still there. My memory is bad in dates, times, birthdays: stuff that I’m not totally engrossed in.’ He’s an introvert, he says. A flippant, blasé introvert, more interested in computers than people. A truthful, average Joe Blow just trying to go about his business and thwarted at every turn. ‘Like I say, I don’t have to worry about all this because my whole family is worrying enough for me. They’re worrying, so I don’t have to.’
We break for lunch, fish and chips and a cool drink. It is a welcome diversion from the intense questions.
There are so many people out to get him, he says when we resume, and Reynolds is one. ‘He comes to see me about the Deidre Kennedy murder …’He lights a smoke. ‘After me conviction, Reynolds become Senior Detective-Sergeant Reynolds.’ He steps on the word, hard and sarcastic. Senior. ‘He was only a Detective-Sergeant at the start of it. Then, after me acquittal, he was demoted …’
It doesn’t square with Reynolds’s version. ‘My understanding is that he blew the whistle on a senior cop,’ I venture. ‘They demoted him; he deliberately stayed in the police force like a thorn in their side until he got out. I don’t think it had anything to do with you.’
He doesn’t miss a heartbeat. ‘Oh? All right. Anyway, I give him as much help as I could, even where to find information. I voluntarily give him dental impressions and hair samples.’
It was not quite like that in the police record of the interview.
‘Sorry, but what you actually asked him was, “Do I have to?”’
‘And what did he say?’
‘He said, “No, you don’t have to.”’
‘Right, well, I did.’ He is leaning back now, arms folded.
‘Yes, but if you hadn’t they could have arrested you,’ I remind him. ‘And then you would have had to. So …’
‘Oh well, anyway.’ He is impatient with the to-ing and froing. ‘Even if I did query it, I still voluntarily give it. Right? Um, even with Herpich, to a point, yeah admittedly, OK no, I did not give a record of interview, I did not say anything. He asked me to go over to Forrest; I did that, but I wasn’t made to or escorted.’
He says he believes he went through Sydney when he left Edinburgh. ‘We left on a truck, went to a rail station, got on a train, changed at a station and transferred to Wagga.’
Hang on, I think to myself, back up. Didn’t he tell Reynolds he left Edinburgh by service air?
‘We then got onto another vehicle and went to the base. They asked me a question – how did I get to Wagga? – and I gave them an answer. My memory has got me into a lot of trouble. I was carrying travel documents from Edinburgh to Wagga, I had to hand them in, and from memory I was also carrying me medical documents, clothing card and a trunk.’
He would like some answers, too. ‘Whose fingerprints are on the Kennedys’ front and back door that match those found on the toilet block? They have never been matched with anybody. They are identifiable, but not identified. And how is it that all the recruits’ memories miraculously got better over 20 years? They get a police officer come to them and say, “We know Raymond Carroll wasn’t in the course photo, and we’ve got evidence to say that he was in Ipswich at the time. Can you agree to this? Is that true?” And they say, “Yeah, it’s quite possible.” And where has all the evidence gone? Why can’t someone tell me that? Has it just disappeared into bloody thin air?’ He is shaking his head. ‘It’s a bit convenient, isn’t it?’
His teeth, the crowning exhibit in both trials, still need work, though some was done when he was a young man. ‘Why haven’t you had them fixed?’I ask. ‘Surely, with all the publicity, they must bother you?’
He bristles again. ‘Why? Why? I’ve got nothing to hide. It’s me, it’s the way I am and, knowing in me heart that I’ve done nothing wrong, why should I change? It’s what I know about meself to be true is what I worry about.’
‘He’s an excellent family man,’ Marilyn adds. ‘I can’t fault him. The kids adore him, and the grandkids.’
‘What about your sex life?’ It’s a gamble: they will either answer, or tell me to mind my own business and take a hike.
Raymond answers. ‘My sex drive is low, even though psychiatric reports done after the WAAF break-in reckoned it’s normal. I’ve decided myself that it’s low.’ He turns to Marilyn. ‘We could both go for, how long?’ he asks her.
She smiles, shrugs and I don’t think I want to go there. ‘Don’t worry,’ I say, airbrushing the question away. ‘That’s not important. Bit personal.’
But Raymond wants to tell me. ‘I’m not into anything kinky,’ he volunteers. ‘Definitely not.’
‘What about women’s underwear – are you interested in that?’
Marilyn giggles. ‘No, he doesn’t even buy me any. I’ve gotta go and buy me own. No, he’s not into that sort of thing. I can verify that, after being with him 12 years.’
It is getting late in the afternoon, shadows l
engthening in the lounge room of Sandra’s unit.
‘You’ve had years to consider this, Raymond. Who do you think murdered Deidre?’
He doesn’t miss a beat. ‘That Borchert kid.’
‘Do you mean Paul Borchert? He was only 12 years old when Deidre died.’
‘So? Meaning?’
‘What happened with Paul? Why did he suicide?’
‘I don’t know. All I know is what I’ve been told, right. All through me trial he’s sittin’ there watchin’ the news, saying about me, “he didn’t do it, he didn’t do it, it’s not him.”’
‘Who is he saying this to?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t give you specifics, I can’t give you proof; all I know is what I’ve been told.’
‘Well, who told you?’
He repeats the question in a whisper. ‘God, who told me that?’
‘Surely you would know that?’ I press, a little exasperated. ‘Was it your lawyer?’
‘No, it wasn’t me lawyer.’
‘How did he commit suicide?’
‘I don’t know. And apparently he left no note.’
‘These sorts of allegations can just be rumour and hearsay, and it’s very dangerous.’
‘That’s why I don’t bring things like this up. I can’t prove it, and, if I can’t prove it, I won’t bring it up. But you keep asking these questions; I can only tell you what I’ve heard, and, if it’s rumour and hearsay, I don’t know. But it’s just very coincidental that it happened at that time. Also, Nugget Carroll assumed at first that the person taking the clothes off the line was Paul Borchert. The description he gave of a bloke with collar-length blond hair, how could he mistake that with someone who had just been in the RAAF, with very short black hair? Nugget’s statement was taken just after the incident.’
‘So, Paul Borchert. Anyone else?’
‘Well, Keith Kennedy had an overbite and a gap between his teeth which would, if you look at the photos the way they’ve done all the enhancements, match better than mine. If you look at it, between the two bruises there is a gap. But they say that gap is caused by the way my teeth have been chipped.’
‘So you think either Paul Borchert or Keith Kennedy. Both men are dead and dead men can’t speak.’ I look him in the eye. ‘What do you think should happen to the person who killed Deidre Kennedy?’
The whole room erupts in shouted answers to my question. Carroll’s answer is drowned out.
I study his face when the commotion dies down. ‘I can’t see your teeth.’ The sentence has fallen abruptly from my mouth before I can catch it. It sounds more of an accusation than a statement, and I shift uncomfortably in the silence.
Raymond inhales the last of the cigarette smoke and grinds the butt into the ashtray. He pins me with a look, and it seems to take an eternity for him to answer. ‘No,’ he finally says. ‘You can’t, can you?’
It is like someone has let the dogs loose in the conversation.
‘What do you think happened to the pubic hair?’
‘The pubic hair?’ He has repeated it softly, as though the question is a surprise. ‘From what I understand from the committal hearing of the perjury trial, they tried to do DNA sampling on the hair found on the child, and they stuffed it up. Accidentally. Well, that’s what they told us. Either that, or they couldn’t get a cc-c ….’ he stammers, clears his throat, ‘a conclusive match so they made an excuse. So there is actually no DNA evidence.’
‘In the months leading up to the perjury trial, all the media releases were, “We’ve got him now on DNA evidence, new DNA technology, there’s no doubt, blah blah blah”,’ Sandra says. ‘Trouble was, there was no DNA.’
‘Never has been,’ Carroll adds.
‘You tell me how my brother had a fair trial with that! Anything that would damn Raymond to hell, absolute, or clear him, absolute, is missing.’
‘But it doesn’t make sense,’ I say. ‘Why would they want to fit somebody up and let the real killer walk free?’
‘After the ball was rolling, I don’t see how they thought they could stop it. Mrs Kennedy had already been told that they had found the baby’s killer.’
‘She had been told this pre-trial,’ Carroll says. ‘Pre-trial. And I think Faye Kennedy has been brainwashed. Do you want to know why?’ He is leaning back in the chair, on sure ground. ‘For years and years, she’s had all these detectives and so-called experts sitting in her head going, he’s the one, he’s the one, he’s the one. That’s all she’s ever heard.’
Marilyn joins in. ‘Look how much it would cost ’em, darlin’, if they proved that you were innocent. If somebody come up and said, “I’m the one who did it; you’ve chosen the wrong guy,” how red-faced would they be?’
‘Yeah,’ Raymond adds, looking at me. ‘If someone fronted up and said, “I’m the one who did it,” a bloody first-year lawyer would get ’em off.’
‘The frustrations with all of this are incredible,’ Sandra says. ‘We know how bad it looks and we just have to accept that we have to live with that. We just have to accept it …’ Her voice trails off. A weariness has descended, the family’s frustration and sadness colliding with rage and impotence. The interview has extended over six hours and it’s close to ending.
‘What would you do if Raymond made a death-bed confession?’
They snap their heads up, jolted from their reverie. ‘He wouldn’t get the chance to die of natural causes,’ Sandra’s ex-husband, Roger, immediately answers, virtually the only thing he has said all day. ‘I’d shoot him.’
‘I wouldn’t just shoot him,’ Marilyn snorts. ‘He’d be barb-wired.’
‘I’d cut his nuts out and shoot him,’ Roger repeats.
‘Yeah, and I’d hang him by ’em,’ rejoins Marilyn. ‘Believe me, if anything happened for us to suspect that Raymond was guilty, I don’t know what I’d do, but it would be gruesome.’
Carroll remains silent, save for the guttural noise that escapes from his throat. The interview will run for eight hours.
49
‘Right. Now it’s my turn to ask you a question.’ Raymond John Carroll has moved closer toward me. Close enough so that I can smell his cigarette breath and notice the tendrils of grey hairs that snake through the moustache covering his lips and teeth. Those teeth: Exhibit A in two Supreme Court trials, two appeals and a High Court hearing. He has fixed me with a penetrating stare. ‘Well? Now do you think I did it?’
50
The bus pulls out of Ipswich station, cruising alongside the River Bremer and past Limestone Park again. The city looks tawdry, drab in the late-afternoon light. Too small to hide in, with its pockets of clustered suburbia filled with RAAF housing. Small enough for people to remember, to stop and point. That’s Faye Kennedy. The woman whose baby was murdered.
I am gazing out the window, mentally running through the interview. Hearing Carroll’s mother’s voice, anguished but determined. He didn’t do it, Debi. He didn’t do it. My son is innocent. The way they hugged when she was leaving, the bond between a mother and her eldest son.
Two juries had believed Carroll had left Edinburgh on compassionate leave. What do psychiatrists say? That emotional stress can trigger unconscious conflicts, that people are more likely to behave differently when they are aroused or frightened about loss. Do things they may not normally do. If his mother was sick, that would have placed Carroll – the oldest boy, the male head of the family just 17 years old – under considerable emotional stress. But if two juries believed he went home, two Appeals Courts had found there was not enough evidence to prove it. And a High Court decision has backed that up. It had not been my job to put him on trial again, simply to ask some questions.
Some of his answers had seemed contradictory to me, unconvincing, but he had admitted his memory is terrible: I can’t give you times or exact dates. Angelo Vasta’s voice echoes in my head: is a poor memory a convenient refuge?
His composure never altered throughout the long day. What did th
at say about his personality? I can’t answer my own questions: I am not a psychologist. But it was obvious he was self-assured in the bosom of his family. They appeared to give him strength. Boosted him.
I am now on the train that links up with the bus service to Brisbane. It’s clickety-clack is rhythmically in tune with my thoughts. Why would he have told me, ‘It’s the first I’ve heard of it?’ when I asked if his mother had ever questioned him if he was guilty. The family must have been over this territory a thousand times. Why didn’t they challenge him?
Sandra obviously looks out for him. Is he dominated by women?
I don’t have to worry about all this because my whole family is worrying enough for me.
His lawyer, he told me, advised against a lie-detector test. I have no way of checking this. Kerry Copley is dead. So many people are, including Nugget Carroll – the one person who actually saw the intruder on the night that Deidre Kennedy was abducted. Police doorknock evidence has vanished. Any males over the age of 12 …? RAAF leave records: all missing. Forget the paperwork. Get him on a plane. Air travel records. Sorry, Sir, the records are thrown out after seven years. Medical records, stamped only. Prison records missing. Any records that would show opportunity for Swifte to speak to Carroll, gone. The pubic hair, ruined: that one, precious piece of DNA that could have held the key, bungled in the John Tonge laboratory before it was sent to the FBI in the United States. And when it got there, already ruined, they could not use it. What had Sandra said? Anything that would damn him to hell, absolute, or clear him, absolute …
The train is moving through the leafy suburbs of Brisbane. Past Auchenflower, where Keith Kennedy had lived. Clickety-clack, clickety-clack.
What happened that night, I wonder? Why would a man be lurking around where the Kennedys lived? Did he live nearby, or was he visiting the area for a purpose? Or both? What was the most likely thing that would entice a man to wander around alone, late at night?
Justice In Jeopardy Page 32
