Preston Quark's Wooden Overcoats

By Ken Moore

Perth, Western Australia was in the grip of terror. An ice-cold hand clawed at its heart. Five teenage girls were missing. Three were from Kalamunda village in the Perth foothills. The police were completely baffled.

Was someone toying with the police? A police officer and a judge’s daughter were among the disappeared. A police offic

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kenneth Moore
• Release date: Jun 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9780995406858

Book preview

Chapter 1

___________

The hand grabbed the cordless phone on the chest at the side of the bed. Before he could speak, the voice on the other end said, It’s the Minister here. I’ve just got in from Sydney. My press secretary has set up a meeting for me with the press at nine in the morning, but you know all about that, she having already advised you. I want to be brought up to date on the present position on the Kalamunda Killer.

Cuthbert Clarence Claude Crawford, otherwise known as ‘Cascade’ because he, like the Australian beverage of that name, also hailed from Tasmania, looked at the electric clock on his bedside radio. It registered 2:55 am.

Minister, it’s three o’clock in the morning. I’ve just got to bed. I have to be up again at six. I’ll have all the latest then. Do you not think, perhaps, it should wait until then?

No, Commissioner, it isn’t three in the morning, it’s five to three. Remember, success depends upon the little things. The winning is in the details. I don’t want to wait until six in the morning. If I’d wanted to wait until then I wouldn’t be ringing now, would I?

I don’t expect the Commissioner of Police for Western Australia to complain about the time when I contact him for an update on what appears to be an extremely serious, if not critical, situation. Five suspected murders and you’re complaining about the time! I have to be up at six, too, and I haven’t been to bed yet, and I’m not complaining. Now, just tell me, what’s happening?

Cascade sighed. He was long since tired of politicians, this one in particular. There was no love lost between him and Sylvester Sikovitts. In fact, they couldn’t stand each other.

‘Slippery’ Sikovitts wasn’t as concerned as he made out about what was happening in the search for solutions to the disappearance of five missing, presumed dead, young females. No, not him. He was in search of glory. He had been bucking for the premier’s job for some time. When he wasn’t white-anting his boss he was white-anting everyone else to make himself look good, so that he was in a better position to engineer the spill that would take him to the top. He would get there, one way or another.

Cascade was not a vindictive man but these days he often found himself praying that Slippery’s travel expenses or electoral allowances would develop a hole so that one of his detectives would have good cause to lay hands on his collar. He would promote that detective the same day as ‘Slippery’ headed for the slammer.

He hoped that given enough rope the not beloved Minister would hang himself. These guys usually slipped up. Did not pride goeth before a fall? He wouldn’t be the first W.A. politician to rort his travel allowance and end up getting sunburnt in stripes as a consequence of gazing out through the bars from his small secure room.

The Minister could then think to himself, as he stood tight up against those bars, what a wonderful country Australia is - where criminals are looked after so well and kept so safe and secure, so very secure indeed.

Cascade was a great admirer of J. Edgar Hoover and sometimes wished that he, like his hero, had a black file on all those vermin in ‘Cowards’ Castle’. But, no, that was not his style. He believed in playing it straight. No blackmail for him. He’d hold his job on merit.

The Minister held his own bluff and sleight of hand and, God willing, might not hold it past the next election. The word on the streets was that the long-suffering W.A. public were, at last, getting wise to their Minister for Police. They were now beginning to see him as the frog in the barrel climbing over the backs of all those other frogs in that same barrel to get to the top. That was all the mongrel, the completely ruthless mongrel, wanted, to get to the top. Maybe, yeah, maybe, with a bit of luck, this pain in the ass would soon disappear.

Cascade had seen a few of the same calibre come and go.

Cascade noted that there was no apology for waking him at this ungodly hour. Instead, when he complained about it, it was made to look as if he were the one at fault. Politicians, who would be bothered with them?

Cascade responded to the voice on the other end of the phone.

"The short answer is, Minister, we have drenched the entire area with as many police officers as we can spare, considering our budget constraints. Yeah, just think about that, Minister - budget constraints - when you are addressing the press. Tell them how we are ham-strung because we haven’t enough officers to go round.

Of course, you can’t tell the press what we are doing and how we are doing it because, if you do, you will alert this guy and he will hold off until everything is quiet then he will start again. He will play cat and mouse, and we will have no chance of ever catching him. Tell them we are completely baffled by it all and haven’t a lead anywhere. Which, of course, is the truth.

Cascade went on.

"Tell them that all we know is that we appear to have a serial murderer out there and we can’t get near him. If he thinks he’s got us over a barrel, he might get careless and make a mistake.

"Don’t tell them that we are bringing in a profiler from Quantico in the United States of America to build up a picture of the germ responsible for the dread disease from which we are presently suffering. Just tell them that we need the cooperation of the public. The least little thing out of place should be reported.

I’m going on TV myself today to alert the public to how serious the situation is, although anyone who doesn’t know that already must be resident on Mars or some other distant planet. We can’t lock the whole city down and wait till this thing blows over. Unfortunately, it isn’t going to blow over. But that’s life.

What can I do to help?

What I’ve been telling you, Minister, for the past 12 months. More resources, that’s how you can help. You’re a tad late – the horse has well and truly bolted.

But the Minister wasn’t listening to that. He wanted credit not blame. Blame wouldn’t get him re-elected or projected into the cat-bird seat.

The Minister responded, Make a list. Tell me in the morning. It’ll help to reassure the public we are serious about this.

You already have my list, Minister, I’ve sent you three in the last six months. I’ll fax you another copy of it as soon as you put down the phone. I can see I’m not going to get any sleep tonight. And, Minister, I’ve always been serious about this.

The phone went dead.

Would you like a cup of tea, dear? asked the Commissioner’s wife, who was now sitting up in the bed beside him, also fully awake. I don’t think you are going to get back to sleep.

Make it coffee, dear, strong. While you are doing that, I’ll ferret out that list, and as soon as we have finished the coffee, I’ll fax it off to His Excellency. I hope his fax machine is beside his bed and has a loud bell so it wakes the mongrel up just as he’s dropping off to sleep. That man does not bring out the best in me.

Don’t worry, dear, like General McArthur said, he’s only a temporary occupant of the Minister’s chair. The next election will see him off. I’m sure of it.

If he has half a chance he’ll see me off before that.

No, dear, you couldn’t be that lucky.

And at half past three in the morning, she kissed her husband on the bald spot on the crown of his head as he sat leafing through the list he was preparing to send to his Minister.

Chapter 2

___________

You know, Willie, if I didn’t know that David Birnie, the Willagee Waster, had done society a favour and topped himself in his prison cell, I would be of the view that he was on the loose again.

"No, sir, he’s not on the loose. I made a point of going to the Casuarina Prison and viewing the body just to satisfy myself that he really had taken himself off to join his ancestors. I could hardly believe that he had the guts for it. Oh, sure, he could see off young females, but do himself in, well, that’s another story.

No one except, perhaps, Catherine, his partner in crime, would have any regrets at his passing. Not only is he safely out of the picture but his evil partner is still safely within the walls of Bandyup Prison where we hope she will remain for the next several hundred years. Short of an earthquake knocking down the walls, I can’t see her walking the streets of Perth ever again. Not a cat in hell’s chance of her mixing with ordinary decent folk on the outside again. If she ever did get out, somebody would knock her off for sure. Then we’d have to start looking for another murderer.

I’m glad to hear you confirm it, Willie. You know, I still have nightmares about those two. I dream that David Birnie and his black love, Catherine, are back in that nondescript, white brick house of theirs in Moorhouse Street, Willagee, going about their everyday murderous business of collecting unsuspecting females to rape and murder.

You can sleep content, sir, they are safely out of it. The trouble is she is too safe. Just think, sir, she has all her wants attended to. She will have four square meals a day and is warm and dry. Not a care in the world has she.

I hope she lives a long time, Willie, and that she thinks of what she did every minute of every day as long as she lives.

"Not a chance of it, sir, I don’t think her conscience will trouble her in the least. I don’t think she gives a monkey’s, not a second’s thought, to any of those four girls they raped and murdered. And to think, some of those parents actually forgave them.

You know, sir, there are some good people about. If it had been my daughter, I’d have wanted to - well, I’d better not say - police officers are not supposed to think like that, but I’m coming back to the view that hanging the rubbish out to dry might not be such a bad thing. They surely don’t become repeat offenders after they’ve done that breakdance at the end of the rope. I read the other day that in America the suspect has 28 grounds for defense before the case even begins. If that doesn’t delay a case, I don’t know what does. No wonder people are reluctant to go to court over there. No wonder Maggie Carter said, ‘Justice delayed is justice denied’. That old sheila knew what she was talking about.

"Now, now, Willie that’s not the way for a senior detective sergeant to talk. Our job is to seek and find, produce and prove. It is for the higher echelons, in what passes for wisdom, to decide what should be done with what we find in the cesspool of life. I’m just glad that I don’t have to decide. But I have no doubt that we have a serial killer on our hands. Five young females missing without a trace. All from good homes and not, so far as I can make out, the least chance that they are runaways.

"No, we are in deep trouble, Willie, and I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. There’s a cunning psychopath out there, and we have to get him before he gets another one.

Oh, and that Maggie Carter you talk about isn’t an Aussie sheila. You mean Magna Carta. The Big Charter from l215. That’s when it was written at a place called Runnymede in England. That’s when those old English barons got the drop on their boss-man, at last. And you know, Willie, the strange thing is, their king couldn’t read or write.

That’s why I like working with you, sir, it’s a continuing educational process. Now I’ll tell you something, boss. Did you know that that murdering scumbag, Birnie, was a mentor for would be suicides in the isolation block at Casuarina? Yeah, it’s true. I heard from an old ‘friend’ who has just been released from three years doing it tough, that when it looked like one of the lifers in Birnie’s block was going to knock himself off, they’d call on Birnie for assistance. Can you believe it? Did you know that the police even sought the aid of Birnie over the Claremont killer?

Yes, I know, Willie. He sent word to Paul Ferguson, who was in charge of the search for the Claremont killer that he might be able to help by giving an insight into the mind of a serial killer. I think that he fancied himself as some kind of Hannibal Lector. Either that or he just wanted somebody to talk with seeing as no one in the prison, not even the lowest of the low, wanted anything to do with him. I know Paul did go to see him, but as you probably know, it didn’t take the investigations anywhere.

You know, boss, my ‘friend’ - villain though he is - couldn’t stand Birnie. He told me that if he had had half a chance, he’d have done the public a favour and put Birnie into permanent cardiac arrest. Of course, me, being a law-abiding citizen an’ all that, with a duty to protect the life of every man, woman and child in W.A. had to point out to him that he was talking murder and if he continued I’d have to do something about it. Mind you, boss, I didn’t tell him what I thought.

I am so happy, Willie, to know that I can always rely on you to do the right thing.

Detective Inspector Jack Kelpie, aka The Bloodhound, and senior detective sergeant William Winnag, aka ‘Willie the Windbag’, both of Kalamunda police station in the foothills outside Perth, Western Australia, were poring over a map of the Kalamunda district together plotting the positions where three missing females were last seen.

He’s got to be somewhere in this area, Willie. Somewhere handy, where he’s in a position to hit and hide. Somebody who doesn’t have too far to travel once he’s made his collection, for the further he has to travel the more vulnerable and exposed he becomes. He’s somebody who fits smoothly into the everyday scene. Somebody, like a uniform or a taxi driver, who inspires confidence; that people trust. The kind of person that they accept without hesitation; that they are not surprised to see there. Now, Willie, can you think of anyone like that?

Yes, I can, sir. A vicar, for a start. Or a woman. Yeah, what about a woman, boss? That’s how the Birnies did it. A woman in the passenger seat to ask for help and put the intended victim off guard for just long enough to have her in the back seat of their car with a blanket over her and a knife at her throat before she knows what’s hit her.

I’m not a profiler, Willie, but this I can guarantee, our grabber is not a woman. Not a woman acting alone, anyway. OK, he might be using a woman as bait, but our KK is a rogue male. No doubt about it. It’s men who are the serial killers, not women, though there are exceptions. Statistics show that beyond contradiction. No, Willie, we are looking for a nice friendly male, maybe accompanied by a woman, who is in need of assistance or guidance. The type of person that you would rush to aid without giving it a second thought. He’s the needle among our dozen haystacks, our grain of sand on the beach. He’s the one we have to get before he strikes again. In my reckoning, he’s just about due.

I think there’s one thing we’re forgetting, sir. Isn’t it quite possible that we have five separate murderers on our hands? You know, boss, Casey Light, Marie Young and our three from Kalamunda. All possibly murdered. We could have one original and four copycats, all of whom want their moment of infamy; who can think of nothing more stimulating than the rape and murder of an innocent. Five psychopaths, or whatever they are, who also want, maybe, to get their own back at the police for giving them an infringement for going over a stop sign or something similar. You know, sir, there are a lot of mad, and bad, bastards out there.

No. I haven’t forgotten that, Willie. That is, most certainly, a possibility. But it’s more a possibility than a probability. I’m going for the serial theory. I have the gut feeling that we have another Birnie duo on our hands. What has surprised me, Willie, is that we haven’t found a body yet. A murderer has to dispose of the body and do it without drawing the least attention to himself. He has to keep on acting naturally. Now, how is this guy doing that, Willie? And you know dead bodies sometimes show themselves.

Maybe he’s a butcher who disposes of the meat in his shop. What I want to know is, what do the butchers do with those large bones and parts of the animal they can’t sell? I never thought of that before. Do they incinerate them? Do they bury them? Just what do they do with them? Maybe we have all been eating a particular kind of sausage? Come to think of it, the beef sausages I have had on the barbecue lately have tasted a bit more salty than usual. Maybe our local ‘beefy’ has turned half of us good Christians in Kalamunda into Hannibal Lectors, and we don’t know it. Oh yuck! To think I might be a cannibal and don’t know it. I think I’ve just put myself off sausages for life.

Me too, Willie. But I think you’re getting frivolous again. This is a murder enquiry we’re on, you know.

"This time any apparent frivolity is entirely unintended, sir, I can assure you. First thing I’ll do when I get home is to have a sample of the wife’s latest buy of best Aussie beef sausages sent for analysis. That’s if there’s any left. They were very tasty, apart from the saltiness, of course.

We might have a Sweeney Todd copycat, as well as a murdering rapist, on our hands.

You do come up with some weird theories, Willie, but, on this occasion, I am not going to discount anything. It is odd that we haven’t found a body. I would have expected at least one to have turned up before now. All this time and not a sniff. Yeah, odd.

No, sir, it’s not odd. Not in this area. There’s too much bush to search. You could bury a body in the John Forrest National Park or the Kalamunda bush, and it would never be seen again, unless by accident. Somebody walking their dog or going off the beaten track for a wee might find it. Luck might do it for us. But there’s no way we could search thousands of hectares just because a body might be there. We might as well talk about searching the whole of W.A. and the Indian Ocean as well. Nah, we can’t do it that way. I’m afraid it’s going to be a painful plod, sir.

The problem is, you’re right, Willie. But that’s what we do best – plod. Yeah, we need a bit of luck. I hate to say it but, to go back to statistics again, they show clearly that most serial killers come to justice not because of great and insightful police investigative work but because of luck – they slip up. Yes, Willie, they slip up and there just happens to be a cop around who is astute enough to notice the slip up. I wonder when this guy, cunning though he might be, is going to slip up? God, send us that bit of luck. We need it.

Maybe he’ll get sick of it and stop?

Nah, he won’t stop. These guys never do. They get to think they’re invincible. Nah, Willie, this one will keep going till you or I, or somebody like us, lay our hands upon his collar.

I hope I have that pleasure.

I hope you do, Willie, I hope you do.

An awful thought has just struck me, sir. What if he stops right now?

What would be wrong with that? I should be delighted if they would. That would be too good to be true.

Yes, but it would lessen our chances of getting close to him. The longer he keeps going, the better chance we have that he will slip up.

It’s all a matter of preferences. Which would you prefer, Willie? That he kept on going and murdered both your daughters and we caught him as a result of that, or that he stopped now, and we never got near him?

Yeah, I see what you mean, sir. I think I would prefer your second option.

So would I. But don’t worry, Willie, my instinct tells me that we are getting close. We are going to get this one.

Strangely enough, sir, mine tells me that too.

Chapter 3

___________

I want more cameras in the area. I want blanket coverage over the whole place. I want it so that if anybody as much as spits in the street or scratches their backside, or anyone else’s for that matter, we’ll know about it.

Too much coverage, Commissioner, and we give the game away. We already have camera surveillance at the high school, the Kalamunda Hotel, all the restaurants in and out of the village and all down Haynes Street. The guy we are dealing with is no slouch. He probably knows more about what we are doing than we do. We don’t want to alert him. Otherwise he’ll just move to another area and start again. You never know, this might be the Claremont Killer in action again, having moved location.

"Yes, Superintendent Whitebar, it might be the Claremont Killer in action again but I don’t think so. His three murders were several years ago and were of a different pattern; a different M.O. I don’t think he has resurrected himself and, yes, you are quite right, we don’t want to alert him. It’s not a case of giving the game away, it’s a case of getting on top of this situation. Whether that is by catching, preventing, scaring off, or whatever. What we need to do is to neutralise this guy until we catch him. What we don’t need are more murders.

"There has to be tree pruning in the area, power lines have to be serviced, Telstra has to repair faults. There are a hundred and one different ways to camouflage what we are about. And you know what these fellows are like, they enjoy taking on the police. Well, let us take him on. Let’s do what we as police officers are supposed to do first and foremost; let’s get on with the job, full throttle, of preventing crime. We’ve got to contain this ghoul. Bottle him up, contain him, if we can, just long enough to get his pattern, then we’ll have