The Beat: A True Account of the Bondi Gay Murders (38 page)

A faint smile, now, remembering. ‘Like, I used to, when I was naughty we used to steal things and sell them. That’s how I got money as well. That was a long time ago.’

A wistful reminiscence or a statement of fact? Pincham couldn’t be certain. This woman – when she was a young girl, pregnant, and as a young mother – still hung out at the beach, drinking and stealing with a gang of up to 30 or more thugs. To the police officer, it was barely conceivable. Except that he’d seen it all before.

‘Okay. Now, when you said earlier that you were drinking both at the north end and the south end of Bondi, where in particular? Was it, like in the huts?’

‘Yeah. In the huts in the middle. At North Bondi there’s a hut up at the back near the kids’ park, two little huts up the back there. We used to drink in there. And at South Bondi near the swimming pool, the cement there.’

What about Marks Park, then? Did they ever go there?

‘Not really, no. To cut through to go to Tamarama I did. But I never hung up there. I think we maybe had a couple of drinks up there in the park – here,’ pointing vaguely at the photograph, ‘but I can’t remember. I just might have.’

‘Do you remember who was with you at that time? Like, is it the whole group?’

‘Yeah. Usually. Usually. Not always, always 30 of us. Sometimes it’d only be, like, ten, five. Six. Sometimes the girls would run away just to keep away from them,
’
cause they’d be drinkin’ their alcohol without sharing. And sometimes they, all the boys, would be up there without us.’

Pincham tried to clarify where she meant when she said the park. Was it Marks Park or Hunter Park or …? It seemed to him that Kylie was confused about the area, was talking about Hunter Park and even the southern end of the beach when she referred to ‘the park’. ‘How often would you have been in that area?’ he asked.

‘No, not hardly at all,’ she said. ‘Maybe, oh, count … wouldn’t know to tell you the truth. But I can remember most of us drinking. Was it there? Yeah.’

She seemed too vague in her recollections, too unspecific, but he had to try anyway. When she was in the park area, who
precisely
was she with? Precisely? She named a half dozen girls, Shari and the other Kylie and Jenny and a couple of others.

‘So mainly with the girls?’ Pincham asked.

‘Yeah. But the boys did go up there,’ she said. ‘Pete Matejcek and Robert Valecky and all them. Him,’ she said, pointing emphatically.

‘So you’re pointing at?’ Pincham encouraged her. For the sake of the audio tape.

Sean Cushman.

The boys were always in their groups, she said, the Maoris sticking together, the white boys together. They’d all join up at the end, though. ‘But, this one here is a … Him and Pete, they always used to be up to stuff. Always.’

‘Okay, so you’re pointing at?’

‘Robert Valecky.’

‘Robert Valecky and Peter Matejcek.’

‘And when you say, up to stuff,’ Constable Morieson interjected, ‘what do you mean?’

‘Oh, they’re just weird boys. If anyone has done anything, I’d look at them two.
’
Cause, I mean, when we got on the bus with him once and he broke his stepdad’s arm. He’s weird, weird bloke. Kylie should’ve told you,’ she said, meaning the other Kylie. ‘Have you seen Kylie yet?’

They knew who she was talking about. ‘No,’ Pincham said. No, they hadn’t spoken to Kylie yet.

‘Oh. Okay. Well, she went out, she, he liked her a lot. She wouldn’t go near him – she thought he was weird, as well. He was nice but he was just weird. Weird bloke.’

There was a brief pause in the questioning while Pincham waited to see if she was going to elaborate further. She wasn’t.

‘What was your feeling towards gay males or gay people during ’89 or that period?’ he asked without inflection.

‘To tell you the truth, I can’t remember,’ Kylie said. ‘But we probably didn’t like them.’

‘Why would you say that?’

‘’Cause all the boys – you’ve got to impress them when you’re young. If they see a guy, see, I don’t want to say this now, this is when I was 16. They used to hate them.’ She considered what she was saying for a moment. ‘I suppose, being young boys – teenagers – and they weren’t into what they were. They didn’t like them.’

‘So, would they be quite adamant about that?’

‘Sort of, yeah. But they wouldn’t bash anyone in front of us. Like, there was a few of ’em that used to go up the Cross and do it, but.’

‘What? Particularly pick on gay males? And did they give any reason for that?’

‘Didn’t like them.’

‘Just didn’t like them?’

‘I never went with them though.’

So, who would it be, Pincham prodded? Who were the ones who’d go to the Cross to bash gays? Well, she said, the problem was they didn’t have all the photos in the book. Not everyone was in there. Some of the guys had left Bondi, had been forced to leave because they were getting into too much trouble. But Sean was one of them. Sean Cushman. Not that he would do anything on his own, she said, implying that he was too cowardly to act alone.

So, who would he normally act with, Pincham asked, meaning who would he bash someone with?

She ran through a list of names, Glen, Shane, Poppa, Joey, Michael, David, Ned, a few others. Glen was a nut case, though. She knew where some of them lived: a housing commission in Coogee, Carlton, still in Bondi…

And out of all those she’d named, Pincham asked, who was she still in contact with? Boys or girls?

‘Only the girls,’ she said. ‘Kylie, Shari. Jenny just had a baby. None of the boys, not one of ’em. These two –’ pointing at the photos again ‘– they left. They had to go back to New Zealand
’
cause they were getting in way too much trouble. But, no. I’ve seen them around if I’ve gone to Bondi. I’ve seen Pete and all that. Daniel is in jail in New Zealand, I think I said that … I think David is in Queensland. Tim is out this way somewhere.’

Pincham took a mental step back, picking his way through the scattered debris of Kylie’s words. She’d said that Kerry had been going out with Cushman at that time, hadn’t she?

‘Oh, yeah. She was goin’ out with Sean for years,’ she said. ‘She was goin’ out with him just not long ago they broke up. Only just. Two years. She stuck through. I don’t know. Obviously, you’d know about him and Aaron Martin? So she stuck with him through all that crap but left him afterwards. Don’t know why. He’s, he’s missing. We don’t know where he is. She reckons he’s at the south coast, but I don’t know. He’s supposed to have run away because Aaron just got out of jail and Aaron wants to bash him, from what I’ve heard. Real big tough boys, you see.’

Yeah, they knew all about that. But the interesting fact was Kerry and Cushman, Cushman who’d told his mother he’d ‘never hung with girls’. Why would he tell her that, why would he say he was never in the company of girls when he’d been going out with Kerry all that time?

Another mental shift. ‘When you say the boys used to go up the Cross and bash gay people, gay guys, which boys are you referring to? Did you ever hear stories?’

‘Yeah, but … I don’t know if it’s even…’

Did the stories come from the boys who did it or from other people?

‘No,’ she explained quickly. ‘From other people. I heard one story, see. I, about Robert Valecky and Pete, and I don’t know if it was through Kylie or Shari. I don’t know. I think it was Kylie or Shari. I think it was Shari that told me. Pete and Robert I think were boasting about burning somebody. I’m not, this is, I’m not a hundred percent sure … and this is at Kingsgrove or Kensington … Now, this is what, this is what I’ve heard, that he put a body in a, a burn thing or something. You know the chutes that they used to have and they, you’re not allowed, they’re not allowed to do them no more?’

‘Like an incinerator?’

‘Yeah. This is what I was told through Shari.’

‘And when was that?’

‘Years and years ago.’

‘What, you spoke to Shari about it or –’

‘Oh, Shari … No … Well, Shari was telling me
’
cause we always used to think that Robert Valecky was nuts, him and Pete were a bit loony bins, and if anyone was gonna lose it, it’d be them.’

‘Right –’

‘But we also thought that about Glen and Sean, so there’s a few of them that are nuts. But the one main story I do remember is them, Kylie, Shari tellin’ me about Robert and Pete with a body.’

And Shari had told her about it years ago, she said. And it had freaked her out, freaked Shari out because she didn’t know if it was true. They – the boys – talked rubbish sometimes. You didn’t know whether to believe them or not. And, in fact, they didn’t believe them this time, not at the time, but she didn’t ask them.

‘I must tell you, now,’ she said. ‘I have spoken to Shari. I know you’ve seen Shari but I, I told her I’d say whatever I knew. But she thinks it’s nothin’, she thinks they were lyin’ and they were idiots.’

The brief silence in the interview room congealed in the heat, thickening the air, causing patches of sweat to stain the backs of shirts. Detective Pincham considered the scene for a moment before continuing with his questions.

‘Are you aware that the, the Marks Park area is a gay beat area?’ he asked. ‘Like a –’

‘No.’

‘– gay meeting place?’

‘No. I never knew that.’ Emphatic.

‘Would you have been aware –’

‘In 1989? No. No. Never knew it was a gay park.’ Adamant, very certain.

‘Did the boys ever inform you that there were gay males in that park?’

‘No. Only, the only place that I knew where a gay was, were … the Wall – it was called the Wall – at Kings Cross. I didn’t think Bondi had gay parks. Sorry.’

Yet others the police had interviewed, other gang members had said that everyone knew about the Marks Park beat. Could Kylie really not have known? She was heavily pregnant during the winter of ’89 so she might not have been as central to the gang as they’d thought, or as she’d thought. And if she’d been peripheral, given that she seemed … less bright than some of the others, she might not have realised. It seemed unlikely, but ….

Did she ever witness any violent acts in Bondi, any bashings? Did she ever hear of any?

There was plenty of violence, she said. Some of the boys used to beat up their girlfriends all the time, bash them.

Any boys in particular? Any of them aggressive all the time?

Cushman, she said, immediately. Yeah, Sean Cushman. And Darren, Glen, Daniel, Brendan, Robert Valecky. ‘They’re all violent,’ she said. They all beat up their girlfriends. But, no, she didn’t know of any other incidents at Bondi, nothing involving violence against anyone else. At Randwick, yeah, she’d seen some shit at Randwick where they’d been acting stupid, got thrown out of a cab and started a fight with someone in the street. Pretty vicious, too. But she couldn’t remember who it was, only that it was after a party at Shari’s house. Sorry.

Unsurprisingly, the interview petered out in a series of negatives: no, she didn’t recognise Ross Warren or John Russell or David McMahon, no she didn’t know anything about their attacks, no she didn’t know about graffiti tags, no, no no…

By 10.15am she was on her way home.

• • •

As Constables Pincham and Morieson discussed what they’d just heard they knew it wouldn’t be long before Kylie called one of her mates to go over her interview. They’d sealed the tapes, gone through the formalities, the adoption process in which Kylie had agreed she’d been treated correctly, and wondered what her spin on proceedings would be.

vi

‘I don’t remember goin’ there, ever,’ the other Kylie said when they were talking about Marks Park. ‘Not that one. That’s too far away.’

They’d discussed the interview in some detail, worried over the PTK, not knowing exactly who’d been in it. It was all too long ago, really, you couldn’t be expected to remember stuff from that long ago. Why did the cops need to speak to them? Why not the others, the boys?

‘They just need more evidence,’ Kylie said. ‘And they don’t have it … I’ve got a feeling it’s Robert Valecky … Just, that’s just my feeling.’

The call ended soon after it started. Kylie seemed subdued when talking to the other Kylie, seemed reluctant to go into too much personal stuff, avoided specifics. Not so with Shari. When she’d finished talking to the other Kylie, she rang Shari and told her she’d just been interviewed. She’d recognised 32 in the photo book, she said. Thirty-two!

‘But I, I seriously think they’re chasin’ the wrong tree, mate.’

‘Oh, for fuckin’ sure, mate,’ Shari agreed. ‘None of those boys would’ve done that.’

Of course they wouldn’t, they knew that, the cops knew it, too, didn’t they? ‘And they asked me, what did they, we all thought about gays when we were younger. I said, you’ve gotta be kidding me. I said, they were all 15-, 16-year-old boys rooting for the first time. Of course they didn’t like gay boys. Or gay men, I said. Well, you know, you had, you had the occasional poof and that. Oh, fags, nah, I said. But no, there was never any fights with poofs. We would’ve had fights with wogs.’